A31 westbound bridge carriageway works at Ringwood to start

Road crews will begin piling works on the two bridges carrying the A31 westbound carriageway over the Bickerley Millstream and River Avon on Monday, March 28. These works will take place between 7.30 and 6pm on weekdays for approximately six weeks.

National Highways have notified residents living near the A31 that they will be installing retaining walls, known as sheet piling, as well as drilling boreholes which will be filled with concrete to create foundation supports. This will enable them to begin preparations to demolish the old bridges.

They also apologised in advance for any disturbances the works might cause.

A31 bridge demolition animation. Image: National Highways

However, motorists will be largely unaffected by the next phase of works as it will not impede the current contraflow.

A National Highways spokesperson told the Echo: “The advanced notice for this six-week period of work is due to the start of piling activities. This work will take place during the day Monday to Friday, not over night, but may need to work some weekends if they find any problems.

“Traffic entering and leaving Ringwood will continue to do so as per the current traffic management arrangements, the contraflow was put in place to enable us to demolish the westbound bridges and still maintain traffic in both directions on the A31.

“Traffic will remain in the contraflow on the east bound carriageway throughout these works.”

A31 bridges shortly before the contraflow installation. Picture: Google

Despite previously expressing concern the A31 works – set to be completed in November – would cause “utter chaos”, Ringwood Town Council’s A31 development forum representative Cllr Philip Day has said traffic levels have proven “better than some of us feared”.

He said: “At the moment, the traffic flow on the A31 is better than some of us feared when they first started. Obviously we will await what happens this summer, but credit where credit is due because the traffic management appears to be mostly working.

“Although we are still having a lot of delays on the local road networks, so we will continue having meetings with the highways authorities to keep putting forward suggestions to makes things better – most of which have been or are in the process of being implemented.”