Road is clear for A38 scheme to start in summer
SHAPPS GIVES GREEN LIGHT TO OVERHAUL 3 JUNCTIONS
A MULTIMILLION-pound scheme to improve the A38 through Derby has been given the go-ahead by the Government.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps yesterday approved the scheme’s development consent order, allowing the work to proceed.
Work on the project, which could cost up to £250 million, could start in late summer and is expected to be completed by 2024-25.
The project, which will see three key junctions at Little Eaton, Markeaton and Kingsway islands overhauled with flyovers and underpasses, is intended to reduce congestion and improve travel times between Derby, Birmingham and the M1.
It is all being carried out to improve road safety for road users, especially those living near to the junctions and will provide new routes for cyclists, pedestrians and disabled people to cross the busy junctions. During this spring, advance work will be carried out including setting up the site compound and carrying out site clearance .
Highways England, which is carrying out the work, said: “The A38 is an important route from Birmingham to Derby and through to the M1 at junction 28. Where it passes through Derby, long distance traffic interacts with a large volume of vehicles making local journeys causing congestion and delays.”
The Kingsway junction will comprise of a “dumbbell roundabout arrangement and linkages at existing ground level”, with the A38 passing beneath the junction in an underpass.
The Markeaton junction will comprise an enlarged two-bridge roundabout at existing ground level with the A38 passing beneath in an underpass to the south-east of the existing roundabout with slip roads connecting the A38 to the new roundabout.
And the Little Eaton junction will have an enlarged roundabout at existing ground level with the main A38 being raised on an embankment and passing above the roundabout on two flyovers to the east and south of the existing roundabout.
Since the preferred plans were first put forward in January 2018, a number of people have objected to different aspects of the proposal.
These included residents living at Breadsall, concerned about noise from an elevate flyover at the bottom of the A38, people whose houses on Queensway face compulsory purchase and demolition and also people objecting to the loss of trees on the edge of Markeaton Park. The latter group of residents, who live close to Markeaton Park, tied dozens of ribbons to trees in the area last September.
In the Secretary of State’s letter giving consent, he said he noted the concerns raised about “the loss of veteran tree T358 on the east side of the A38 carriageway close to the Markeaton footbridge due to the replacement of this footbridge impinging further in the root protection area and encroaching into the tree canopy area”.
But in the letter, the Secretary of State “considers that the national need for, and benefits of, the proposed development clearly outweigh the loss of the veteran tree”.
But overall, he concludes that the proposed development “would result in a modest general enhancement of biodiversity that would not be significant and that moderate beneficial operational effects on Dam Brook, protected/notable fish in Dam Brook, otters and aquatic macroinvertebrates weigh significantly in favour of the order being made”.
A decision on the scheme had been expected by last autumn but the coronavirus pandemic had delayed the process, which has now pushed back the proposed start of work from March to late summer.