THE notorious A338 Bournemouth Spur Road is set for a “rebuild” in a £26m investment programme.
The “major maintenance scheme”, which is likely to cause massive disruption, will take place on the six miles between Cooper Dean and Ashley Heath.
Highway chiefs say the road is “worn out”.
Money for the scheme has been released by the South West Regional Development Agency as the government pumps more money for infrastructure projects into the economy during the recession.
Final confirmation, though, is still to come from the Department of Transport.
Head of Highways at Dorset County Council Andy Ackerman told the Echo: “Maintenance is quite an expensive operation but this is to go all the way from Cooper Dean to Ashley Heath.
“The general intention there is to reconstruct all of that carriageway between those two points, recycling as much of the material as we can while we’re doing that. This is really because the road itself is pretty weak.
“The road has exceeded its design life because there are so many vehicles, up to 60,000 a day, travelling on it. In essence, it’s worn out.”
Diversions will be set up where necessary, with Matchams Lane and the A31 being two options. Mr Ackerman said contraflows would be used as much as possible with disruption “kept to a minimum.”
“Although things like additional lanes have been talked about, the need is urgent to mend the road and put an end to the continual disruption.”
The bulk of the work will be carried out in 2010/11.
County councillor and vice chairman of the county’s police authority, Cllr John Lofts last night described the spur road as “quite useless” and said: “This is long overdue. The biggest problem for drivers is one of reliability. You can never be certain if it will be open or not.”
RDA figures show £5m has been allocated for 2009/10 and £21m for 2010/11.
The spur road section of the A338 has been controversial because of its poor accident record, frequent closures and design deficiencies, including the short slip roads at the Blackwater junction.
Experts have already been asked to look at improving the junction.
Christchurch Borough councillor David Fox, who is also Dorset county councillor for the Hurn area, said: “There is a great deal of unease over the idea of using Matchams Lane as a diversion route if the works on the Spur Road get the go ahead.
“Anybody who can suggest Matchams Lane as a viable alternative obviously hasn’t been there. It is not a suitable road for this volume of traffic. There is potential for chaos.
“Although the plans are not at a definite stage the feeling of unease could break out into anger if these proposals go ahead.”
The quality of driving is also part of the problem on the road.
As long ago as 1996 county highways chiefs said they could barely keep up with repairs needed to safety barriers because of “lunatic drivers.”
