Major night works start Sunday on Paulsgrove Junction

Portsmouth City Council is urging road users to plan ahead and consider alternative routes during the night works. Signed diversion routes will be clearly displayed in advance, which may involve motorway routes. There will be no closures in place during the day.

The current traffic signals have reached the end of their 25-year life span and urgently need to be replaced to ensure the junction operates safely and for years to come.

The programme of night works will begin on Sunday, 27 April, at 9:00pm-5:00am, with a full closure of all four arms of the junction for four nights. This closure will allow Colas to safely set up temporary traffic lights that will be in place for the duration of the works, allowing the junction to remain in use.

Following this initial phase, there will be a period of monitoring the temporary traffic signals with no active work taking place until the night of Tuesday, 6 May. From that point, the night works will consist of localised lane closures around the junction until Sunday, 22 June, with advance warning signs in place.

Once all traffic signals have been replaced, there will be two further nights of full junction closures to remove the temporary traffic lights. After this, Colas will begin resurfacing the road to complete the upgrades to the area.

Cllr Peter Candlish, Cabinet Member for Transport at Portsmouth City Council, said:
"This is one of Portsmouth's busiest junctions, and updating and maintaining these signals is critical for the safety of road users. These works were originally scheduled for February, but had to be postponed due to emergency gas works carried out by SGN on London Road affecting Portsbridge Roundabout. Now that those works have been successfully completed, we must resume our essential planned work, and this programme is designed to minimise the disruption to the road network.

"We are aware that these night works coincide with the May bank holidays, which is why we have carefully planned the programme with Colas to avoid full junction closures on those dates. Works will be completed in full ahead of the busy summer period."

Services by First Bus X4 and X5 will be affected after 9pm and will divert after leaving Portsmouth International Port via: Stamshaw and Hilsea to Paulsgrove. Then via: Allaway Avenue, Jubilee Avenue, Portsview Avenue, and Station Road to Portchester Precinct. Further details can be found here Temporary Route Diversion. Routes X4 and X5 A27 Southampton Road. | First Bus

Walking and cycling routes will be maintained throughout the duration of the works, please follow signs for safest routes.