Icy roads, snow and freezing conditions provide ironic twist to repair drought damaged A1101 across the Fens
Conditions have been might what you regard as challenging along the A1101 as workmen complete their first two weeks of an eight week improvement plan. - Credit: Archant
County council highways is looking for better weather in coming weeks as it moves into the third of an eight-week closure of the A1101 to repair the drought damaged road.
Sections of roads highlighted red are part of this scheme. In Cambridgeshire, these roads are Mildenhall Road, Hill Row Causeway, St. Marys Road, Heme Road, Milk and Water Drove, Prickwillow Road, Streatham Road, Stuntney Road, Ramsey Road, Mile End Road and Benwick Road - Credit: Archant
“Week two of our drought damaged road repair scheme is coming to an end,” said a council spokesman after posting photos of how snow has interfered with the improvement works.
The A1101 from Shippea Hill to Littleport repair work began on February 19 as part of a major campaign to repair more than 40 miles of drought damaged roads.
The county council says it is aware of the lengthy diversion needed along the Mildenhall Road on the A1101 but its closure for 24 hours daily, seven days a week is essential to get the repair work done.
Although the work will only be carried out during the day, the council says that because of the extensive nature of the repairs the roads will be fully closed for each scheme. Diversions will be signposted and local access maintained wherever possible.
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Councillor Mathew Shuter, chairman of the county highways and community infrastructure committee, said: “We appreciate this might be frustrating news for people, but we needed to carry out further detailed investigation work into the whole road structure, particularly the foundation layers.
“We are repairing roads which are affected by extreme weather conditions due to the fenland soils beneath them, so the conditions are very difficult to account for in the design.
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“We want to provide a long-term approach to the maintenance of these roads to prevent the need for repeated repairs and extra disruption, so we want to get this right.”
In total 21 sections of road across Peterborough, Fenland and East Cambridgeshire are being repaired following a successful £3.5 million funding bid to the Government.
Both local councils topped this up to create a £6.25 million package that will mean all the improvements can be carried through in a relatively short period of time. Many of the Peterborough schemes have either been started or completed.
Other roads that will be improved are:
B1040 Herne Road, Ramsey: March 2018
B1095 Milk and Water Drove, Farcet: April 2018
B1104 Prickwillow Road, Isleham: April 2018
A1123 Stretham Road, Wicken: April 2018
B1040 Ramsey Road, Whittlesey: April 2018
B1096 Benwick Road, Ramsey: May 2018
A1123 Hill Row Causeway, Haddenham: May 2018
B1040 St Marys Road, Ramsey: June 2018
A142 Stuntney, Ely: June 2018
B1382 Mile End Road, Prickwillow: June 2018
