Road to close for weeks as new roundabout is built

Advance notice has been given to more than 6,000 residents about the work scheduled for 1 July

A Leicestershire road will be closed for eight weeks during the summer as a new roundabout is built.

The A606 Burton Road, in Melton Mowbray, will be closed from 1 July, with a scheduled reopening date of 25 August.

Leicestershire County Council said it had given more than 6,000 residents and businesses advance notice of the work on the North and East Melton Mowbray distributor road.

The authority said measures had been taken to "minimise disruption", but accepted that during summer it was "unavoidable".

The county council and contractors Galliford Try say partial lane closures were ruled out as excavations of over 4ft (1.2m) deep were required to completely remove the existing road under and either side of the new roundabout.

Burton Road was previously closed to traffic in January for works.

However, the council said diversions and additional signs put in place to advise drivers of official, alternative routes were ignored by some cars and HGVs, who used narrow, rural roads to pass through small villages.

This time, traffic monitoring cameras will be installed at Little Dalby, particularly to deter HGVs.

Janna Walker, the authority's assistant director for highways, said: "We’ve listened to what people have told us about the previous closure, so we’ve put additional measures in place.

"If we do become aware of HGV operators ignoring the official diversion route and driving through small villages, we’ll pass on the information to the police.

"The building of the Burton Road roundabout is another vitally important part of this major road scheme. We’re doing what we can to minimise disruption with a summer schedule, but we do know that some disruption on existing roads is unavoidable."

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