Staffordshire County Council

Published: 20 July 2023

The following update on local road closures has been provided by Staffordshire County Council Highways:

A513 to the West of Alrewas closure

The works to install a main which will serve the new Cemex site was first planned for September/October 2023. Following traffic and networks usual procedure to consult on Road Closures SCC received three responses regarding the impact to the school transport services.

The risk of not being able to maintain usual pupil attendance to The Friary and John Taylor High School to name two was seen as too great so the work had to be planned for the holidays, unfortunately with the A38 NH works, while known about, this was still considered as the best option in this case.

The surfacing work required in the area will be conducted under the road closure rather than at an additional later date.

Because of the location of other services (HP gas mains) and the methodology of the excavation required (using a vacuum excavator) there is no safe working width, to allow signals to be used so the road has had to be closed.

Watery Lane closure

As you will know a housing development has been approved with access off Watery Lane as well as further works.

SCC Traffic and Network has been approached by engineers working on the technical and legal requirements for the Redrow access and while this has not been signed off yet it is likely that 15 weeks will be required to make good the highway improvements.

Unfortunately as with major developments all the utilities need to get supplies to the site and SSW are to close the road from 4th September for 12 weeks. The plan was to do the highway improvements at the same time which would have been an ideal situation but with the highway agreement not being signed off SCC do not know when this work can start now and it may be at the same time as the SSW closure or later or even next year. It is likely that there will be no access through the works so a diversion will have to be followed.

Trent Valley Road A5127

SCC is always very strict with utilities that need to work on the A5127 but inevitably there is always an impact. The long duration of the HS2 A38 works is such that SCC could not tell utilities to delay works here for 18 months. The current work is being made good and reinstated over the next couple of days so that will be removed and officers have been told to push back for the next 6 to 8 weeks on any further proposals hopefully alleviating problems here.