A431 temporary toll road opens

A temporary toll road linking Kelston with Bath in Somerset, UK, has opened. Local businessman Mike Watts set up Kelston toll Road Limited to build the 400 metre road, enabling traffic to negotiate the A431 Kelston Road, which has been closed since February because of a landslide. It has cost Kelston Toll Road £150,000 to build the road and Mr Watts estimates it will cost another £150,000 to run the toll road for five months. He plans to charge motorists £2 each way to use the road, which will need to attra
August 4, 2014 Read time: 3 mins

A temporary toll road linking Kelston with Bath in Somerset, UK, has opened.

Local businessman Mike Watts set up Kelston toll Road Limited to build the 400 metre road, enabling traffic to negotiate the A431 Kelston Road, which has been closed since February because of a landslide. It has cost Kelston Toll Road £150,000 to build the road and Mr Watts estimates it will cost another £150,000 to run the toll road for five months. He plans to charge motorists £2 each way to use the road, which will need to attract 1,000 cars a day if it is to break even.

Thought to be the first private road in the UK for 100 years, the road was built in just three days to avoid the hour-long diversion around the roadworks on the key route between Bristol and Bath.

Mr Watts told newspapers: “Building a toll road isn’t easy to do – this is the first private road in Britain for 100 years. I think people are very grateful that we have taken this risk.”

Bath and North East Somerset Council predict the section of the A431 will be open again by Christmas and has launched an investigation into the toll road, claiming it does not have planning permission and could be dangerous.

In a statement, the council said: “This remains an active landslide, which could move without warning. In the absence of any information from the toll road promoters the council has concerns about the impact of traffic loading on the land above the slip.

“The council is not in a position to support the temporary road option as we have not been provided with any evidence/information to support the application. A temporary toll road requires planning permission and no application has been received.

“In view of public concerns the council’s planning enforcement team are currently investigating this matter. The council has no details to confirm the toll road design meets safety standards and no evidence that insurances are in place for any member of the public who use the private toll road.”

The council added that it had considered a bypass road on the south side of the closure, where it would not increase loading above the landslip, but this was not viable.

Enforcement

Related Content

  • Funding shortfall for US Interstate upgrades
    May 11, 2012
    Andrew Bardin Williams investigates tolling on the federal Interstate system as maintenance and upgrade requirements increasingly outpace funding The I-95 corridor through North Carolina is one of the most heavy trafficked interstates in the US, seeing upwards of 46,000 vehicles per day in some stretches-and North Carolina’s Department of Transportation (NCDOT) estimates this number will to rise to 98,000 vehicles per day by 2040. Along with the rest of the federal interstate system, the North Carolina str
    Read More
  • New API unlocks travel value for Bristol
    January 5, 2016
    A new application programme interface (API) developed by UrbanThings for Bristol City Council claims to provide easy and free access to a huge wealth of transport data in one place, making it possible for innovative technologies to be developed. The Bristol API supports the Council’s approach to opening up data sets, as it already does through the Bristol open data portal and is being further developed by the Bristol Is Open project. The wider aim is to work with the technology community to explore ways
    Read More
  • Lorry emissions checks to start at the roadside
    June 26, 2017
    From August 2017, roadside checks of lorries carried out by the UK Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) will include an emissions check.
    Read More
  • Strike action prompts commuters to try something different
    June 2, 2014
    David Crawford highlights responses to transit disruption on both sides of the Atlantic. Shortly before workers at San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) began a lengthy round of pay and conditions-related strikes in summer 2013, impacting on the daily lives of 400,000 communities, online ridesharing group Avego publicised a new web address: bartstrike.com. By the start of the following week, Avego was encouraging stranded commuters to download its smartphone app by offering them the chance in a raffle
    Read More

Highlighted Content