Wokingham Major Highways Programme

Programme value: £124 million

Sector: Infrastructure

Local labour within 20 miles: 65%*

Local spend within 40 miles: 95%*

Project on budget: 100%*

Spend with SMEs: £3.4m*

Students engaged: 6,702*

Waste diverted from landfill: 97%

Everyone comes together for weekly collaboration meetings, and there is a full understanding of the project overall (and the wider scheme) - what needs to be done and when by. The team is fully on board with the aims and the product we need to deliver."

Ian Haller

Contract Manager, Highway Delivery | Wokingham Borough Council

With an increasing population and a commitment to build around 12,000 new houses in the area, Wokingham Borough Council needed to build and improve vital infrastructure to enable and support this sizeable development.

Improving and enhancing their road and highways network will help to reduce traffic congestion and attract residents to the new communities being created. The council are investing nearly £1bn into these areas, which will include new housing, schools, open spaces and leisure facilities.

The council’s programme of work with SCAPE and Balfour Beatty spans across nine different projects and includes several strategic development roads. Procured through the Civil Engineering and Infrastructure framework, this will allow them to be flexible with the order of project completion, yet maintain momentum through efficient delivery, ensuring the full programme is completed by October 2021.

In meeting their responsibilities to deliver new housing, Wokingham Borough Council has committed substantial investment, secured from developers, in a wide range of infrastructure.

The outcomes of this programme are to:

Create and enhance road infrastructure to support growing communities
Enable access to and between new facilities and housing
Improve the flow of traffic, improve the experience for drivers and cyclists and minimise congestion as a result of increased development
Support the future growth and success of the borough’s wider regeneration strategy over the next 20 years

Early contractor involvement through the Civil Engineering and Infrastructure framework has enabled Balfour Beatty to help the council mitigate risks and ultimately provide them with the most cost-effective solution.

Undertaking infrastructure transformation of this scale requires a highly collaborative approach and a detailed strategy for planning, design and delivery. This £124m Highways Programme includes nine key projects, divided into five schemes:

North Wokingham Distributor Road

West of Old Forest Road
Toutley Road
Ashridge Farm

South Wokingham Distributor Road

Eastern Gateway
Spine Road
Western Gateway

The South Wokingham Distributor Road and North Wokingham Distributor Roads will create access to 2,500 and 4,000 new homes, respectively, and will minimise the impact of the increase in traffic on nearby residential roads and communities.

Winnersh Relief Road Phase 2

Lower Earley Way Dualling

The project on Lower Earley Way will involve widening of the road to provide two lanes in each direction, between the Loddon Roundabout, near Showcase Cinema, and the new junction with the Winnersh Relief Road. Increasing the width will improve the road’s capacity and alleviate congestion in traffic pinch points.

Arborfield Cross Relief Road

A sustainable new village with about 3,500 new homes is being built on the former Arborfield Garrison site. Neighbouring Shinfield Parish is also seeing significant development, with about 3,000 new homes being built as part of the extension of Shinfield Village, Three Mile Cross and Spencers Wood. The relief road is being created to minimise the impact of traffic growth on the villages of Arborfield and Arborfield Cross and the surrounding rural lanes.

Barkham Bridge

The current Barkham Bridge is an existing highway structure along B3349 Barkham Road, operating on a priority give-way system enabling traffic to cross the Barkham Brook. The improvements as currently proposed include the construction of a new highway bridge in order to accommodate continuous two-way traffic flow.

The existing Bridge will be converted into a shared footway/cycleway, connecting the existing sections of footway to the east and west.

*The programme's performance and social value KPIs are correct as at April 2020.

65%

Local labour within 20 miles*

£3.4m

SME spend*

6,702

Students engaged*