Locals call for urgent rethink over four-month road closure
More than 1,000 people have signed a petition calling for a rethink on closing a main road through Melton near Woodbridge for four months.
Bloor Homes needs to carry out the work on Woods Lane to connect gas, electricity and water to a new housing development.
Click to watch a report on the Melton road closure by ITV News Anglia's Victoria Lampard
The road closure will be in two stages.
It is estimated that phase one will last for 24 days in November. The closure will restart in January for a further three months.
It will involve installing 500 metres of sewer pipes and connections, two metres underground, along the middle of Woods Lane.
A diversion will take traffic through Woodbridge.
Businesses in Melton say Wood Lane is already gridlocked during rush hour and they’re concerned about the impact of closing a section of the main road through the village.
Howell Jenkins of Five Winds Farm Smokehouse and Butchery said: “There’s a continual flow of traffic here and the proposals to send this volume of traffic through Woodbridge is just not going to work so the whole area is just going to jam up and if people avoid the area, a lot of people avoiding the area will be our customers.”
In a statement Bloor Homes said: "We can confirm that as agreed with Suffolk local authority, a section of Woods Lane will be closed while our contractor carries out essential road and sewer works to service our Longwood Fields development in Melton.
"This will include the construction of new footways, bus stops, access improvements and utility connections."