Hampshire County Council’s commitment to improving the county’s transport infrastructure was revealed last week in a report presented to the Executive Member for Environment and Transport, Councillor Rob Humby.
Councillor Humby explained “The County Council is delivering transport improvement schemes on a huge scale, with around £160 million being invested into Hampshire.
“This year alone, 15 major schemes across Hampshire are in either the design or delivery stage, compared to two or three just a few years ago. This investment in Hampshire’s roads and transport is vital to our economic prospects and our quality of life, with improvements focussed on relieving congestion, improving air quality and safety, and easing journey times as the population grows.”
As well as covering a range of improvements including structural highways and bridge maintenance, improvements to road safety, and flood mitigation measures, the programme of works highlights investment in transport links such as the Eclipse busway in Fareham and Gosport.
A successful bid to complete the route with a 1km busway extension was announced last year. This is allowing the County Council to press ahead with this key scheme which forms part of a wider package of initiatives designed to improve access in the area by encouraging more people to try the bus, and contribute to improved air quality by reducing traffic on the local road network.
Councillor Humby continued “Much of the funding for these improvements has been secured through competitive bidding, and the County Council’s expertise and successful preparation has directed national investment to Hampshire.
“In these times of financial pressures on council services, it is even more important that we are able to lever in additional funding to improve transport links, so that people can go about their day to day lives and Hampshire shows it is open for business.”
Investment in improvements is spread across Hampshire, from the Whitehill and Bordon relief road in the East of Hampshire, the A33 at Crockford and Binfields in Basingstoke through to Newgate Lane South in Fareham, and the Eclipse Busway in Gosport.
In addition to new schemes, numerous aspects of highways maintenance work on existing infrastructure have been completed, such as:
- 448 planned highways maintenance schemes
- 66 safety engineering schemes to specifically reduce traffic collisions
- 21 bridge joint replacement repairs at Redbridge to avoid future weight restrictions
