Detrunking of the old A14 (A1307)
Message from Cambridgeshire County Council:
The old A14, including the route between Swavesey and Huntingdon, is due to be officially handed over from National Highways to Cambridgeshire County Council. This is the formal “de-trunking” process. The Road will be known as the A1307
From 8th February 2024 the transfer process will be complete and the county council will be officially responsible for maintaining these sections of highway. This will include any maintenance such as resurfacing, street lighting, bridges, barriers, traffic lights, drainage and public rights of way. The relevant sections have already been added to our winter gritting routes. As part of the handover process, National Highways has provided the council with almost £25 million towards the maintenance of the road.
Upon de-trunking these sections will immediately be incorporated into our regime of safety inspections. Furthermore, work will be undertaken on carriageway patching which is planned to take place by March 2024.
A key priority for us will be assessing the Godmanchester to Huntingdon section, which is currently restricted to a temporary 40mph speed limit due to safety concerns with the barriers. Now the road has been handed over to us, we will be visiting the area ASAP, so we can look at the design needed and programme the work with a view to starting on the barriers in the summer. In the meantime, the 40mph speed limit will remain in place.
The Council is developing a programme for planned closures of the road to enable us to undertake a number of maintenance operations simultaneously. We will seek to co-ordinate the use of these closures with the District Councils to enable them to undertake works at the same time. This would, for example, enable verge and drainage maintenance undertaken by the Council to be co-ordinated with cleansing and litter picking operations undertaken by the District Councils. Such co-ordination will minimise the inconvenience to the travelling public and make optimum use of traffic management.
The Council’s online reporting tool for highways issues, Report It, will be updated to reflect the change in responsibility for the relevant sections of highway. There is likely to be a brief period when the system does not reflect the change in responsibility and the portal will not allow customers to report defects to us for the A1307 / old A14. This delay in the system is due to the way roads are held and classified on the National Street Gazetteer. The delay should be short. Officers are working with the Street Gazetteer to expedite the process. Webpages will be updated to inform customers to use the customer contact centre for reports duding this period. Local Town and Parish Councils will also be briefed and updated when the systems are changed.
