The busiest and dangerous M25 junction is revealed and there are major plans underway to fix it
Tap to watch a video report on the major upgrade work on the M25 from ITV News Meridian's James Dunham
The busiest and one of the most dangerous junctions on the M25 has been revealed and highways bosses are injecting six figure sums to fix the issues.
If you’ve ever had to travel from Surrey or Hampshire from the A3 to London’s orbital motorway you’ll know the junction can often see vehicles criss-crossing the carriageway.
To detangle the traffic, extra lanes are being created to provide more capacity, eight bridges will be constructed and the traffic lights will be replaced.
A £317 million project which will see drivers face reduce speed limits and weekend road closures for two more years. National Highways say the pain will be worth it.
For the drivers among the 280,000 vehicles using the junction every day, the message from project manager Jonathan Wade is “please bare with us”.
“It’s a fairly easy statement to make but the drivers, the driver experience, but the way we look after customers really is at the core at national highways’ planning.
“You cannot undertake a project of this magnitude without having an impact. In two years time it will be worth it.
“We're seeing at the moment collisions at roundabout a daily basis. Some of them are fairly minor, they're just wing mirrors or just simple shunts. Some of them are a lot more serious as we saw just two weeks ago on the M25 when the M25 was closed for 7 hours.”
Land the size of 16 hectares is be used to replace the open space needed for construction, with concrete blocks shipped in from Nottinghamshire rather than overseas, project bosses say a reflection of the scheme’s green credentials.
Despite hundreds of trees being removed, many more will be replanted and the scheme will see the UK's first heathland bridge created.
It will connect walkers, cyclists and horse riders with Wisley and Ockham commons, where heathland is being restored to enhance the habitat's for animals and birds, such as Night jar and Woodlark.
The projects lead ecologist Pippa Jordan said, “It's about having the right habitat in the right place and this all was originally heathland.
“These trees were planted, I think just after the Second World War, as pine plantation and so they are all going to be taken for their intended use, so they'll be sent to timber mills and such around the local area.”
“Heathland is quite a unique habitat in that it's almost very manmade because if you just leave it, it will become woodland in the end. And so we are just returning it, and then we will be maintaining it, to stay as heathland.
“It's important for all the species we're here. it's not just the bird species that we've got, but also there's a lot of invertebrates, beetles and bugs which are all really good for the local environment.”
Major road projects often evoke fears of irreplaceable environmental damage but National Highways say the sharp focus on the M25/A3 scheme is one of ecological green improvements.
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