The new transport secretary has approved another of National Highways’ delayed improvement schemes on the A47 in Norfolk.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan granted a development consent order (DCO) for the £161m scheme to redevelop Thickthorn junction on the outskirts of Norwich.
This will see two free-flowing connections between the A47 and the A11 as well as additional lanes and pedestrian crossings. A new half-mile link road will also be built and a new footbridge over the A47 will also be put in place around 45m to the east of the current bridge, which will be removed.
This scheme is one of six major improvements costing almost half a billion pounds that National Highways is making to the 115-mile section of the A47 between Peterborough and Great Yarmouth.
The government-owned company said the schemes will improve safety and reduce congestion on the A47 – ‘currently one of the country’s most dangerous A roads’.
Traffic modelling data shows the section of the A47 between Thickthorn junction and the Ipswich Road junction is used by over 60,000 vehicles each and the A47 has one of the highest recorded accident rates for an A road in the UK.
National Highways said that following the redevelopment of the junction, casualty projections over the next 60 years suggest that as many as 26 fatal or serious injury collisions could be prevented, with 242 fewer incidents.
The first of the package of schemes, a £17m upgrade to Guyhirn junction in Cambridgeshire, officially opened in May.
However, in 2017 Highways England, as it was known, announced that three schemes, including the Thickthorn Junction scheme, were to be delayed as part of a ‘reprofiling’ of the first Road Investment Strategy that saw around 10% of the programme delayed, kicked into the long grass or cancelled.
In 2019, it awarded Galliford Try a deal that was then worth £300m for the A47 package.
In 2020 Norfolk County Council called for Highways England to be held to account for the ‘agonisingly slow’ progress on improvements to the A47.
Chris Griffin, National Highways programme leader in the East Region, said: ‘Anyone who knows the area will also know how busy the junction can be and I am confident our work will significantly reduce congestion, improve journey times and, most importantly, make the road safer.
‘As we now move towards the construction stage this serves as a further example of National Highways’ commitment to upgrading the A47 between Peterborough and Great Yarmouth.’
National Highways said the granting of the DCO means preparatory work on the project can begin later this year with construction due to begin in early 2023 and the redeveloped junction fully open to traffic by early 2025.
