Transporting Bedford Works Progress

There are three Transporting Bedford projects taking place in Bedford currently:

• the improvements on Bedford High Street and St Paul's Square to take one lane of traffic out and create a better atmosphere for shoppers;
• the Northern Gateway works to create more space and ease congestion;
• the Ampthill Road works installing technology and increasing capacity to improve traffic flow.

Transporting Bedford is a £24million project to tackle congestion hotspots in Bedford.

Recently on the Bedford High Street project, the island on the south east corner of St Paul's has been substantially completed. The new kerb on the east side of St Pauls Square is also substantially complete, and a large section of the footpath is complete and re-open.

Over the next two weeks, the kerb outside Ladbrooks and around the junction with the Embankment will be completed, and the road resurfacing will start.

Further north, there has been good progress on the Northern Gateway project with the widening of Clapham Road between the two roundabouts complete, along with the dedicated left hand turn lane from Clapham Road into Manton Lane.

Works have started on the central reservation of the dual carriageway, introducing a permanent right hand turn into Sainsbury's so people won't need to use the Clapham Road/Manton Lane roundabout to U-turn.

Finally, over on Ampthill Road there has been a variety of works taking place from road and pavement resurfacing, to road widening, the creation of new pedestrian island at Technology House, installation of communication ducts to improve how the traffic signals works and so improve traffic flow, and new street lights and signs.

Works are continuing to widen the road between Victoria Road and Britannia Road. This is expected to continue until December. During these works, the majority of the roadworks will be carried out with lane closures to keep the traffic moving though there will be short periods where temporary traffic lights may be needed during off-peak hours.

Councillor Charles Royden, Portfolio Holder for Highways said "There is a lot of exciting work happening in our town, delivering these major improvements for the long term future of our roads. We know these work are causing some disruption at times and we apologise for that- we have to deliver these works in a set time to ensure we don't lose any of our national funding which is seeing millions invested in our road network."

Hilary Chipping, Chief Executive at SEMLEP, added "As Bedford continues to thrive, it's important that we invest in the long term development of the area. The Transporting Bedford project does just that, tackling key congestion hotspots in Bedford, making the roads more reliable for the future. We look forward to the Local Growth Fund project completing in 2022, improving connectivity for pedestrians, cyclists, cars and buses throughout Bedford."

Transporting Bedford is a project to tackle congestion hotspots in Bedford, funded by both Bedford Borough Council and funding from the South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership (SEMLEP), through the Local Growth Fund and represents the largest ever investment in Bedford's roads.