Wiltshire Council to start design work on final dualling of the A350 at Chippenham

Wiltshire Council is due to begin environmental surveys in February on the final phases - phases 4 and 5 - of improvements to the A350 at Chippenham to dual the remaining single carriageway sections of the road past the town, and improve Bumpers Farm Roundabout, reducing congestion and improving journey times.

The Government has announced that it will allocate £26.6 million for the scheme, and the council is now moving forward with the design phase of the project, starting with environmental and topographic surveys. These surveys, along with a public engagement exercise to be held later in 2022, will form part of a Full Business Case (FBC) that will be sent to the Department for Transport (DfT), which will then confirm the funding.

The project will see several improvements to this busy stretch of the A350, including:

• The widening of the A350 to dual, two-lane carriageways between Chequers Roundabout (A4) and Lackham roundabout. This is phase 4 of the overall dualling scheme.
• Phase 5 of the dualling, which will see the widening of the A350 to dual, two-lane carriageways along the full stretch between Cepen Park South Roundabout and Bumpers Farm Roundabout (A420).
• Remodelling of the Bumpers Farm roundabout junction to provide capacity enhancements and full signalisation.
• Changes to Lackham roundabout capacity to accommodate the additional carriageway.

All works will take place within the existing highway boundaries, and as such there will no need to use any additional land. All existing bridges in the area were built to allow for additional lanes.

Cllr Dr Mark McClelland, Cabinet Member for Transport, said: The A350 is an important route that links the M4 to the south coast, and we're delighted to be moving forward with this scheme to complete the improvements to the road around Chippenham.

These final phases of the dualling of the A350 in this area will improve journey times, add extra capacity for vehicles and reduce congestion in the area.

We're now getting to work on the initial site surveys for the scheme, and then later this year we'll hold a public consultation to hear what people think about the proposals. If it all progress as we'd like, we would hope to see the scheme completed by 2025.

It is anticipated that it will take the council around 18 months to prepare the FBC for the scheme, including the public consultation later this year. It would then be expected that work would start on the scheme sometime in 2024, for completion in 2025.

To find out more about the scheme, people should go to www.wiltshire.gov.uk/highways-improvements-a350.