A CAMPAIGN to dual the Carrington Road Bridge has moved a step closer to reality after county council chiefs wrote to the Government in a bid to seek vital funding.
Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin has been sent a strategic outline business case for the ‘essential’ works to improve the A440 Worcester Southern Link Road – one of the main roads which leads to Malvern.
Highways chiefs at the county council have told the Observer the project could cost between £70 and £80million pounds.
Improvements are well underway to improve the county’s Southern Link Road with phases one and two completed and a third phase due to finish in 2018. But funding is needed to make the fourth and final phase a reality.
Earlier this year Mr McLoughlin visited the county to find out more about the long-term vision for the area.
And in a letter to the Government, county council leader Adrian Hardman and Mark Stansfield, chairman of Worcestershire Local Enterprise Partnership say the dual-tracking of the road would speed up journey times by up to 50 per cent at peak times.
It reads: “This is an essential scheme for Worcestershire, central to our determination to deliver significant economic growth and improve the productivity of the county.
“It would provide better access to the development sites west of Worcester, such as Malvern Hills Science Park which is home to a cluster of cyber businesses QinetiQ and the National Cyber Skills Centre.
“With companies such as Talk Talk still reeling after the recent cyber security breach, it is nationally important that we continue to develop this sector and a number of cyber suppliers to Government are located in the county.
“Phase four of the improvements to the A440, which is the dualling of the Carrington Road Bridge, is the final and most crucial stage of the programme to increase strategic capacity between Powick Hams and the M5 Junction 7.
“Only by completing the final phase of improvements will the full economic and journey time benefits of the earlier investment be realised.”
