Daniel Mumby reporting from the Chelston link road roadworks site

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00:00Hello once again, people of Somerset. It's Daniel Mumby here, your local democracy reporter.

00:07Welcome to the start of another week. And you join me on the outskirts of Wellington,

00:12just north of Junction 26 of the M5, where it is unusually quiet, because today is the

00:17first full day of three months' worth of roadworks along this stretch of road, the

00:23Chelston Link Road, known colloquially as the Concrete Carriageway, which is now closed,

00:29as you can see from the traffic queuing up here. I'm standing just outside the entrance to the

00:34Foxmore Business Park. This road is now shut to all traffic coming to and from the motorway towards

00:40Wellington, as Somerset Council and its contractor Heidelberg Materials begin a £5.7 million road

00:48improvement scheme, funded largely by central government funding from the Department for

00:52Transport, to transform this old road constructed in the mid-1970s, when the M5 was

00:59physically being delivered, changing the surface into something much smoother to provide better

01:04journeys for motorists. As you can see, their roadworks are already in place. The motorway

01:09junction itself was shut at 9pm yesterday evening, and for the duration of the roadworks,

01:16you will have a contraflow system running from the Chelston roundabout at the top of the road here,

01:22allowing traffic to come in and out of the business park on temporary traffic lights. There is also a

01:2720mph speed limit in effect. So if you have a business in this area, or if you need to visit

01:33Foxmore, you can still get in, but only from the north. And as things move forward with the scheme,

01:40which we'll go through the details of in just a second, you may need escorting as the northern

01:45stretches of the road are continuing to be upgraded. So if you're not familiar with this scheme,

01:51let me give you some background on this and give you an idea of the disruption that you can expect

01:56between now and the end of September. Like I say, this is a £5.7 million scheme. £4.7 million of

02:03that funding comes direct from the Department of Transport. It was secured all the way back in

02:07July 2020, so in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, and it's been sitting in a council bank

02:12account since then, while the council, together with National Highways, the government agency that

02:18runs the M5 and is responsible for all the improvements and ongoing maintenance there,

02:23they have been negotiating over the scale of the scheme and the timings thereof. And

02:28essentially, the work is being done now, middle of June, right through the summer, ending at the

02:33end of September, to allow National Highways to access their gritting depot, which lies a very short

02:39distance from here, ensuring that the road and others like it can stay open through the winter.

02:45So, the work is being carried out in phases. The first phase, if we just step back a little bit,

02:54I'm not going to actually step into the roadworks area, but just to give you an idea, the first phase

02:59is going to be focused around the roundabout of the motorway itself, and they're going to be using a

03:03technique called rubbleisation, which is often used for creating airport runways, where essentially

03:08you will have a machine with a load of massive hammers on the back of it, going along and smashing

03:14up all of this concrete, and using that rubbled concrete as the basis for the foundations of

03:25the new road, which will then be raised, allowing the road's flood risk to be reduced, reducing

03:31all the puddling that happens here during the wetter series, wetter series, wetter seasons,

03:36can't even get my words in the right oil this morning, and then that technique will be used all

03:41the way up here, with smooth tarmac being laid on the top. Now, because of how low the motorway

03:46bridge is, they're actually going to have to do a lot of that rubbleisation the old-fashioned way,

03:51hence why the motorway junction is closed entirely for the duration. So, if you are trying to get to

03:56Wellington, and you usually use the M5, you either have to go up to junction 25 for Taunton,

04:01and use the A38 to get in that way, or you have to go down to junction 27 for Tiverton,

04:07and come up the A38 through White Ball and Rockwood Green. It's expected to add significant

04:15time to people's journeys, and we are expecting large amounts of congestion, particularly because

04:19as we go into the summer months, the A38 is one of those main relief roads that, if there's a

04:24problem on the M5, all the traffic gets funneled down it. So, it's going to be an interesting summer,

04:31let's put it that way. Now, this scheme, like I say, is going to be run for the next three months,

04:40and the initial section will be focused around the motorway area itself. We think that the slip

04:46roads leading onto the motorway will also be refurbished as part of that, or at least given

04:51a nice lick of paint, and then gradually, the scheme will move up to this section south of the

04:58Foxmoor entrances. Again, with those rubberisation techniques, all of this pale, almost pink

05:07concrete, which has been patched, as you can see, in various areas as a result of all the HGVs that

05:13use this route, it's been taking a real battering over the last five decades. All of that is going

05:17to be replaced with smooth tarmac, and eventually, it will work its way all the way north to the

05:23Chelston roundabout, which provides a link into Wellington itself, along with the West Park 26

05:29business area, where the town's Costa, McDonald's, KFC, and various other businesses are placed.

05:33And yes, nobody paid me to say any of that. So, hopefully, that gives you an idea of the

05:39disruption. The outcome of this, hopefully, will mean that all of the new housing and investment

05:47that's coming to Wellington in the coming years, including, of course, the new railway station,

05:51which was finally confirmed last week as part of the government spending review. It means that if

05:55you're travelling to and from those new homes, those new transport links, those new facilities,

06:00because hopefully there'll be more economic investment, more businesses and more jobs coming

06:04to the area, especially with the site, you can sort of see me gesturing to up there, where

06:09a separate business park has got planning permission. They're just working out where to put the wetlands

06:15to offset the phosphates for that. But all of this investment coming into Wellington, this will create

06:20smoother journeys. And smoother journeys means more productive journeys for the rest of us.

06:28Like I say, at the moment, things are relatively quiet here. You can see where they've started to

06:32dig up some of the tarmac on this spur road leading into the business park. And I've had to contend

06:38with HGVs moving in and out on the temporary traffic lights. But if you hear loud bashing sounds in the

06:44next few weeks, that'll be the main reason why. And like I say, we'd love to hear your experiences of

06:50using the diversions that are in place as of this morning or technically as of last night when the

06:55motorway shut. Particularly interested in if you live in the neighbouring villages such as West Buckland

07:00or over the Blackdown Hills, places like Hemioc and Calmstock, if you're used to using 26 to get into

07:08Wellington. And we'll be keeping a very close eye on how the roadworks unfold over the coming months.

07:14So please get in touch with your experiences. But in the meantime, having given you that little

07:19overview, I'm going to leave things here and get back in onto the roads themselves. Thank you very

07:25much for your company this morning. This is Daniel Mumby, your local democracy reporter at the start

07:30of the concrete carriageway roadworks. And we'll be back here at the end of September to see how it all

07:37looks. Bye for now.

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