THE A338 Spur Road will be closed to all traffic for five nights from tonight.

There will be five nights of closures to allow for preparatory work for the next phases of the rebuild  - that's the reconstruction of the top parts of both carriageways and moving the contraflow to the Northbound carriageway. When is that happening? See the dates here

Closures will be in place from Cooper Dean all the way to Ashley Heath, so drivers will be diverted along Castle Lane West. 

Redhill Roundabout, the route will take the A347 Whitelegg Way, then up New Road, West Parley to Ringwood Road before finally joining the A31 at Palmersford Roundabout.

The route uses New Road because of gas main works on Ringwood Road.

For those travelling southbound, the route will be the same but in reverse.

The A338 will be closed between the Ashley Heath Roundabout on the A31 and the Cooper Dean Roundabout on the A3060:

From 8pm Monday 2 November until 6am Tuesday

From 8pm Tuesday 3 November until 6am Wednesday

From 8pm Wednesday 4 November until 6am Thursday

From 8pm Thursday 5 November until 6am Friday

From 8pm Friday 6 November until 6am Saturday

There is a further week of closures provisionally booked from November 9 in case of bad weather or further survey work.

It is not yet known if the closures will definitely take place.

And there will be a week of night closures at the start of December – Monday 7 to Friday 11.

Highways and utility company bosses have said they are doing all they can to minimise disruption around the area during the rebuild.

Since the Spur Road project began there have been restrictions on a number of roads, including the A347 at Parley and Stony Lane at Christchurch.

On top of that, it has emerged that work will also begin on November 19, lasting a one-to-two weeks, at the Chapel Gate roundabout, where Dorset County Council will be digging trial holes for buried cables ahead of the roundabout being replaced with traffic lights next autumn.

It has promised that the work, which is part of the Dorset Local Enterprise Partnership Air Growth Programme, will cause little disruption as it will take place on the verges.

Away from the routes that drivers have been taking to avoid the Spur Road, there have also been delays at Alder Road in Poole for BT work, while there has been gas work at Ham Lane in Longham and Bournemouth Water is to close Albert Road in Bournemouth town centre from today until Friday.

An increase in traffic of less than 10 per cent has been seen on the A347 and the A348 since the work began, although Matchams Lane's traffic volumes have doubled, officials say.