Harwell Link Road progress in words and pictures

Traffic Management

• Temporary traffic lights will remain in place 24hrs / 7 days per week on the A417 and will now need to stay in place until both sides of the roundabout are complete and ready to open to traffic.

• On the B4493, temporary traffic lights are used during working hours to allow construction vehicles to access the site safely.

A417 progress

On the A417, surfacing on the new half of the roundabout has been done and traffic on the A417 is now directed around the new section.

We have now started construction of the other half of the roundabout where drainage is currently being installed, soon to be followed by the placing of the stone sub-base and the laying of kerbs. 

Work will also progress with the shaping of the middle of the roundabout which will have block paving installed to create chevron arrows like the ones done at the Chilton Junction last year. 

Gas main diversion and new roundabout

On the B4493, work is being done to divert the gas main around the new roundabout position.

There have been a few challenges with location and diversion of the services to the properties in this area so these works are taking a little longer than planned.

We have started work on the north side of the B4493 and will soon be importing stone into this area to bring the levels up for the new roundabout. 

100,000 tonnes of stone and good progress

The work on the new link road is also progressing well as we continue to bring in stone fill to make up the levels for the new road.

To date we have had over 100,000 tonnes of stone delivered to site. We have also started constructing the drainage attenuation system that the entire scheme drains into, this involves the construction of a settlement pond which will be planted with reeds to help clean up the dirty water that runs into the highway drains. 

Temporary traffic lights will remain in place 24hrs / 7 days per week on the A417 and will need to stay in place until both sides of the roundabout are complete and ready to open to traffic.

On the B4493, temporary traffic lights are used during working hours to allow construction vehicles to access the site safely. This will continue until we need to link the new half of the roundabout into the existing road at which time these lights will also become 24hrs / 7days per week.