Road closure is set to cause months of travel disruption

AMAJOR route through Gloucestershire will shut for months next year as part of a multimillion-pound project to save a road damaged by years of landslips, which have caused it to be partially sectioned off for the last eight years.

The A435 connecting Cheltenham and Cirencester will close for the majority of 2023, from March to October, while work is carried out on the land underneath the road, which has subsided and caused sections of the left-hand lane between Charlton Kings and the Seven Springs roundabout to crack and become hazardous.

The £3.5 million project, which is jointly funded by Gloucestershire County Council and the Department for Transport, will see engineers excavate sections of the road up to 12m deep and reinforce the ground underneath with sheet piles extending over 440m. Sheet piles are interlocking sections of steel sheets typically used to reinforce earthworks.

This work is to be carried out on the left-hand “crawler lane” of the Charlton Hill stretch of the A435, which has been sectioned off since 2014 when landslips first caused the road to crack. This entire stretch of the A435 will also be resurfaced after the work is completed.

This lane is adjacent to the sloping embankment of the Lilley Brook river, and landslips have caused four separate sections of the route to shift, crack, and become unsafe for road users. Despite resurfacing and patching over the years, the route has continued to be hit by slips along this embankment.

The works have been scheduled to begin in March after the Cheltenham Festival, which typically draws in hundreds of thousands of people and road users to the town and Gloucestershire. It is scheduled to end just before the Prestbury racecourse’s November meet.

During the eight-month stretch next year, parts of the route will be closed off to pedestrians and cyclists, as well as motor vehicles. Highways are arranging a public drop-in session in 2023 to explain the changes in greater detail.

Jason Humm, director of transport and highways at Gloucestershire County Council, said: “I appreciate this road closure will be inconvenient while the work takes place and would like to apologise for any disruption that it will cause. However, it is essential this work is carried out to make the route safe for all road users and it will bring improvement to a section of road that we know has been a concern to the public for some time.”