A multi-million-pound road scheme, that will help to ease congestion in Lichfield, and to support future developments in the city, has moved a step closer to completion following the successful finish of a major engineering project…
Construction of the Lichfield Southern Bypass is well into its final stage – the present section involves building an underpass beneath the Cross City railway line. Once complete, the £17.5million scheme will connect the A5127 Birmingham Road and A5206 London Road, easing congestion in the South of the city.
During a four-day period over Christmas 2019, a new rail bridge was installed on the City Line section, under which the new road will pass. The project involved removing the rail track before the installation of the structure, embankments were then reconstructed and the railway line placed back into position.
Click here to view a time lapse of the installation.
With the new bridge in place, the project team are now able to excavate beneath the structure to connect the new section of road with the Falkland Road/Birmingham Road island – retaining walls that will support the bridge will also be built before the road section is finalised.
Following completion of the bridge, the new section of road will link a new housing development, a new primary school, in addition to easing congestion in Lichfield city centre and around the railway station.
Staffordshire County Council’s Economic Growth Leader, Mark Winnington commented:
“The final section of the Lichfield Southern Bypass is vital for the city’s future growth – reducing congestion in the city centre, enabling development and helping to attract future investment. The scheme is progressing well and the work taking place over the Christmas period was a major engineering success. It involved a lot of careful planning and was completed on schedule. It was great to see the team in action when I visited the site – they have done a tremendous job. This is another example of the county council and partners delivering a major development project on schedule and is a hugely encouraging start to the new year.”
Chris Loughran, Deputy Chair at the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP), said:
“The Lichfield Southern Bypass is an extremely important development for the city and to see it progress to the final stages is fantastic. Alongside reducing traffic in the area, the bypass will bring exciting opportunities to Lichfield by enabling the development of new homes and a new primary school. Our role is to ensure that through strategic investment in vital infrastructure projects such as this, locations within the LEP geography continue to thrive and provide outstanding places in which to live and work.”
Iain Eadie, Lichfield District Council’s Cabinet Member for Investment, Economic Growth & Tourism, added:
“For anyone who saw the work over Christmas to install the new rail bridge, they will have seen a crucial part of the project to deliver improvements for Lichfield take place. We understand that the developer will complete the link road by the time the 201st dwelling is occupied on the new development it is bringing forward. Once the new bypass is open we can look forward to the ability to direct traffic around, rather than through, our historic city centre. This offers better connections, and we will also see a new primary school, mixed use community hub with retail outlets and community use buildings, as well as cycle ways, open spaces for sport and children’s play areas, delivered for our district.”
The project is funded by the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership, the Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Local Enterprise Partnership, the Department for Transport and developers.