Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering Ltd

A46 Newark to Widmerpool

An old Roman road will become a new dual carriageway

Through a large part of Nottinghamshire the A46 currently remains single carriageway. Under a £220 million Highways Agency ECI contract, awarded to Balfour Beatty in March 2004, the 28km section of the A46 between Newark and Widmerpool will be upgraded from a single carriageway to a dual two-lane road.

As a Roman road the existing A46 is generally straight, but follows the undulating landscape, giving forward visibility and overtaking problems. This section of the A46 also has a higher than average accident record for roads of this type. Compounding the visibility problems are nearly 300 direct private accesses (fields, farms and houses), 19 "T" junctions and nine at grade junctions.

Upgrading the A46 means designing and constructing the works to fit into the existing landscape. The road passes through woods, skirts towns and several villages, lies on the flood plains of the Rivers Trent and Devon and passes a working RAF airfield. Provision also needs to be made to get the new road under the Grantham to Nottingham railway line near Bingham, with a crossing also needed for the Gratham Canal.

The improvement scheme will provide eight grade-separated junctions, 11 overbridges and two underbridges, as well as realigning the junctions with A606 at the southern end of the scheme and the Newark Relief Road at the north.

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