Weekend closures planned for busy A-road

The cat sculpture that adorns the Black Cat roundabout is in storage until the £1bn road improvement scheme is completed

A stretch of an A-road will be closed for the first two weekends in November, so six steel beams "the length of a Boeing 737 aircraft" can be installed at a new bridge.

The A421 will be fully closed for five miles (eight kilometres) in both directions between Renhold, Bedfordshire, and the Black Cat roundabout, south of St Neots, Cambridgeshire.

National Highways programme manager Gareth Moores said: "Each beam will be carefully lifted into place, inch-by-inch, using a 750-tonne crane."

It is part of the agency's £1bn 10-mile (16km) dual carriageway scheme, linking the A428 Black Cat to Caxton Gibbet in Cambridgeshire, which is due to open in 2027.

The Roxton Road bridge is currently under construction

"The scale and complexity of this engineering feat cannot be overstated and marks a significant moment for our scheme," added Mr Moores.

Each beam weighs 130 tonnes and is 37m (88ft) long, which National Highways described as "the same weight as a fully grown blue whale and length of a Boeing 737 aircraft".

They will form the backbone of a new Roxton Road bridge, which will accommodate a new westbound slip road and eastbound link from the A421 to the A1.

Diversions will be in place from 21:00 GMT on 1 November to 05:00 on 4 November, and from 21:00 on 8 November to 05:00 on 11 November.

Eastbound traffic will be diverted via the A603 at Cardington to the A1 northbound at Sandy, to the Black Cat roundabout.

Westbound traffic will use the same diversion route in reverse.

Mr Moores said: "Closing the road ensures we can complete this beam lift safely, protecting both our workers and the travelling public."

The A428 upgrade is designed to improve journey times between Milton Keynes, Bedford and Cambridge