A14 eastbound between Bury St Edmunds and Needham Market set to be closed by National Highways
A stretch of the A14 in Suffolk will be closed overnight next week as changes are made to major roadworks to help ease congestion for drivers who have to queue to get into a contraflow system.
National Highways has advised motorists that an overnight road closure will be in place on the A14 eastbound between junction 43 (Bury St Edmunds) and junction 51 (Needham Market).
The stretch of the A14 will be closed on Monday, May 22, between 8pm and 6am the next morning – when there is less traffic.
On its website, National Highways said: “We’ll be altering the layout of the slip road on the A14 at junction 47, following traffic monitoring done earlier this month.
“We are making changes because traffic on the A14 is either slowing down and stopping to allow vehicles to merge, or not allowing vehicles to merge, which is causing traffic congestion on the entry slip road.
“To help solve this, we will be extending the eastbound entry slip road at junction 47 to allow traffic from junction 47 to merge into the A14 contraflow.”
They added: “ Please note that the date of the closure may be subject to change due to weather conditions or unforeseen circumstances.”
Roadworks on the A14 between junction 47a Haughley to junction 49 at Tothill are in place whilst the key commuter route is being resurfaced.
The work, which will cost an estimated £37m, is due to finish in summer 2024.
A spokesman for National Highways said: “We have made good progress on the A14 47a Haughley to 49 Tothill reconstruction scheme in the last month, breaking and removing the old concrete road surface on the eastbound carriageway.”
He added: “Our focus at the moment is on lane two, where we’ll soon begin removing the excess material and begin the process of rebuilding the roads foundations.
“Once the foundations are in place, we’ll begin laying the first layer of asphalt, before repeating the process in lane one.”
“The scheme has suffered from a number of traffic incursions into the roadworks. We’ve since amended the traffic management layout to make it clearer for motorists.”
Recently extra signs have been put in place in villages affected by rat running, caused by the roadworks and contraflow system.
Rat running is when drivers use shortcuts, back roads and shortcuts to avoid traffic.
