Balfour gets going on £40m Gedling access road

Balfour Beatty starts main construction work this week on the long-planned Gedling access road (GAR) for Nottinghamshire County Council.The 3.8km single carriageway road will provide a link between the B684 Mapperley Plains and the A612 Trent Valley Road/Nottingham Road, running through the old Gedling Colliery site to serve Keepmoat’s £140m Chase Farm housing estate.Balfour Beatty was appointed to the project two years ago on an early contractor involvement basis to develop the scheme and confirmed as main contractor in July 2019.Design and construction costs have been put at £33.9m and total project costs are £40.1m (at 2016 prices). Housing developer Keepmoat is contributing £17m to the project.Nottinghamshire County Council has been safeguarding proposals for a Gedling village bypass for more than 50 years, and GAR forms part of the proposals for the A612 Nottingham eastern outer loop road – the rest of which has already been completed by the council.Completion is expected by autumn 2021.