National Highways contractors carried out emergency works on a section of the A12 in Essex in the early hours of Tuesday morning (5 September) to resolve a safety issue relating to planned surfacing works.
National Highways said that an issue with the surface of the carriageway was uncovered in the early hours of Monday morning in a section of the outside lane where the carriageway meets the northbound contraflow system between Marks Tey and Stanway.
According to the BBC, the issue was with the height of the road surface.
During the day on Monday the northbound carriageway of the A12 was down to one lane for safety reasons, with delays of around an hour during yesterday’s evening commute, National Highways said.
'Additional resurfacing' of the affected carriageway was completed in the early hours of this morning with both northbound lanes opened around 4.30am.
National Highways thanked road users for their patience and apologised for the inconvenience caused by the reduction in capacity and the subsequent closure.
Update - The #A12 northbound is now closed within J25 #MarksTey to complete the remaining resurfacing works.
— National Highways: East (@HighwaysEAST) September 4, 2023
Traffic is being diverted via the exit and entry slip roads. Works are due to be completed by the morning rush hour. Traffic flowing well on approach to closure. pic.twitter.com/ptnwU9E3Fn
The road is already subject to a series of overnight and weekend closures between Junction 25 (Marks Tey) and Junction 26 (Stanway) under a year-long, £37m project to replace the concrete road surface.
The northbound carriageway had been closed from Junction 25 from 9pm on Friday until 5am on Monday morning.
Under the ongoing resurfacing scheme, which is part of major National Highways programme to ‘revitalise’ life-expired concrete road surfaces, the old carriageway is being removed down to its foundations before being reconstructed.
National Highways said this will involve using recycled material from the old road and ‘state-of-the-art techniques’ before the carriageway is resurfaced with asphalt.
The road is expected to be open to traffic from spring next year.
