The Innsworth Gateway Project will deliver a new roundabout on the A40 Gloucester Northern Bypass between Elmbridge and Longford to facilitate development at Innsworth, and will provide an upgrade to Longford Roundabout increasing its capacity to accommodate predicted future traffic flows and assist in relieving existing congestion.
The works comprise the formation of a new Roundabout on the A40 Gloucester Northern Bypass to serve the development known as land at Innsworth allocated in the adopted Joint Core Strategy for Gloucester, Cheltenham and Tewkesbury and which has received planning permission on appeal.
The project will unlock the Innsworth site for housing and commercial development and provide increased capacity for the local and strategic road networks with the aim of reducing journey times, improving reliability, and improving connectivity to the Forest of Dean.
The three elements of the project are:
- A new junction onto the A40 Gloucester Northern Bypass; known as the “Innsworth Gateway Roundabout”
- A new access road to serve the proposed development at Innsworth.
- Capacity improvements to Longford Roundabout.
Outputs & Outcomes gained
- 630 jobs.
- 1300 homes.
- 8.3 hectares of employment land.
The project promoted by Tewkesbury Borough Council is to be jointly funded from Local Growth Deal Funding awarded to the GFirst LEP and developer contributions. The estimated scheme cost is £9 million of which approximately 50% will be provided from the Local Growth Fund.
Without the project the impact of the proposed development at Innsworth would create unacceptable traffic impacts on the surrounding local road network.
Business cases are currently being prepared to support the scheme with construction expected to commence in 2019.
A40 Longford Roundabout Capacity Improvements
The Longford Roundabout is a four arm junction situated to the south west of Longford and is the meeting point of the A40(T) and the A38 Tewkesbury Road. The roundabout facilitates movements between the two A-roads as well as providing access to Gloucester City Centre via the A38 Tewkesbury Road.
The Longford Roundabout currently experiences congestion during the morning and evening peak hours resulting in queuing and delay. Traffic modelling indicates that without improvements to the junction these delays would increase significantly, which would have a detrimental impact on the attractiveness of the area to residents and business.
Increasing the capacity of Longford Roundabout through elongating the central island and widening to all entries will improve journey times and reduce queuing at the junction. The scheme will also improve journey times and reliability for bus services operating along the A38 primary route to/from Gloucester, Tewkesbury and Cheltenham. By relocating and signalising the existing pedestrian crossing on the A40 Western arm the improvements will also benefit pedestrians and cyclists crossing the A40. The existing toucan crossing on the A40 Eastern arm will be retained although it will need to be extended to provide for an additional lane on the approach to the roundabout.
Construction Phase
The exact extent and duration of traffic management at the new Innsworth Gateway and Longford Roundabouts during the construction phase can only be decided once a contractor has been appointed and the method of working agreed. However due to the scale of works being undertaken it is inevitable that there will be an increase in driver delay during the construction phase. The majority of works will be undertaken between 09:30—15:30, outside the peak hours. Although every effort will be made to minimise works during the peak hours there will be road works in place at the junction throughout the construction phase.
Traffic management during construction can result in additional delay for motorists, however they are necessary to ensure the safety of staff on site.