Funding approved for Balfour’s £55m Plymouth link road

The Department for Transport has signed off on a £22.56m contribution to Plymouth City Council’s £55m Forder Valley Link Road.The Forder Valley Link Road is a proposed 1km link between William Prance Road in Derriford and the Forder Valley Road/Novorossiysk Road junction, via a bridge over the Bircham Valley. It creates a second route between the A38 and Derriford, avoiding the often heavily congested Manadon roundabout and A386 Tavistock Road through Crownhill.The new road will also unlock land in the north of the city for development, where 4,300 homes are planned over the next 15 years.Enabling works for the road began at the end of January, ahead of main construction starting later in April. Main contractor is Balfour Beatty.Related InformationOutline planning permission for the scheme was granted in December 2013 with a further detailed approval in July 2018.In December Plymouth City Council revealed that the total costs of the project had escalated from an initial £38m to 54.78m, which it said was mainly due to unfavourable ground conditions being detected during investigations and an increase in the width of the main link road (requiring more biodiversity measures such as hedgerow, vegetation and tree planting and wildlife habitats).