Government confirms £3.98million for Thanet Way upgrade work

Thanet Way upgrade

Government funding of £3.978 million has been awarded for upgrade works to a section of the A299 Thanet way.

The funding is part of Government plans to invest £5 billion in infrastructure to kickstart the country’s economic recovery from coronavirus.

The A299 Thanet Way Renewal scheme will receive the £3.98m from the Government, along with £442,000 of local funding, to proceed. It is one of 29 local road projects which are receiving a share of £100 million, as part of the Government’s plans announced today (June 30).

According to a bid made by Kent County Council last year the work concerns the major renewal and strengthening of sections of the road to address significant areas of undulations likely caused by underlying clay soil conditions.

The bid states: “We propose to fully reconstruct and strengthen around 1,750m of Lane 1 coastbound to a depth of 750-1,000mm including bound, unbound and capping layers. The same underlying clay soil conditions have also affected four overbridges, and this is the subject of a separate expression of interest for Challenge Fund resource in 2020 and 2021.”

The sections are Lane 1 coastbound between M2 Brenley Corner junction and Herne Bay, predominantly
the area around the Whitstable junction and approaching/exit of Chestfield tunnel.

South Thanet MP Craig Mackinlay, said: “I am delighted that Thanet will be one of the very first beneficiaries of the Prime Minister’s New Deal for Britain, kickstarting our recovery from coronavirus.

“Upgrading the A299 will bring huge benefits to our local area, alleviating traffic problems, reducing congestion, pollution and better connecting our community with the rest of the country.

“Last December I was elected to level up Thanet, and I am pleased to be able to demonstrate the Conservatives’ commitment to doing so.”

North Thanet Mp Sir Roger Gale added: ““Clearly the last thing that we want is for work to start during what we still hope will be a good if short summer holiday season but I hope that we can get cracking very fast in the Autumn.”

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: “As the country begins the recovery from Covid-19, we need to get on the front foot and invest in infrastructure in every region to reignite the economy, helping better connect people with work and leisure in the future.

“By investing £100m in local roads and reaffirming our commitment to better connecting communities, we are not just talking about levelling up – but making it happen.”

11 Comments

  1. Wish they would upgrade pavements especially Broadstairs and Ramsgate, so difficult to get around when disabled. Also better speed controls near QEQM coming in from Broadstairs as coming off 50 mph onto 30 mph is mostly ignored and makes it very hard to get out of Drapers close

  2. I expect that will be cope with the Manston Airport traffic that will be generated when the airport reopens.

    • Hah ha ha ha ha.
      The airport plan is finished after this virus. As for the MP for Thanet South Thanet South claiming it will improve the journey, it’s only making right the poor road conditions that currently exist. There’s no widening or similar so it will not make much if any difference at all, and during that time we can look forward to lane closures or reduced speeds again.

  3. This will go down as ‘massive road-building’, when it is essential maintenance to stop the road sliding down the slope. If the govermnet’s money had been there last year KCC might have done it properly. Not exactly the Hoover Dam is it.

  4. How can Mackinlay claim this as benefiting Thanet’s recovery from coronavirus or that it’s “Upgrading the A299 will bring huge benefits to our local area, alleviating traffic problems, reducing congestion, pollution and better connecting our community with the rest of the country”………..it’s a repair job, that’s all?

    • Exactly – a repair job between Faversham and Whitstable. “Huge benefits to Thanet”?? Geez, give me strength!!!

  5. “Upgrading the A299 will bring huge benefits to our local area, […] reducing […] pollution …”
    How does upgrading a road reduce pollution?
    Wouldn’t it be better to spend the money on improving the railway? That really would reduce pollution.

  6. What about the £5,000,000 (1966) £10,000,000 (1995) £20,000,000 (2005) £50,000,000 (2019) Birchington By-Pass?
    Shelved again (?)

  7. It looks like all the schemes that were already in the pipeline—like this one—are going to be included in the not-very “massive” £5 billion “New Deal” so that it looks like good-old Boris has found some magic money from somewhere to give us all a boost.
    If Labour had suggested even half of this cash, the papers would have screamed out horror at the “waste of money” “We can’t afford it ” “bankrupting the country” etc etc.
    But ,as it’s Johnson doing it, it’s seen as sensible economics, even a remarkable new innovation that had never been thought of before by anybody. Except John Maynard-Keynes and every Labour leader since the hopeless Ramsay McDonald.
    I would welcome this “boost to the economy” except that the amounts are puny compared to the task in hand and most of it was already earmarked for existing projects.
    The only potentially good idea is that it should become easier to convert empty shops to residential use. Like much else that Johnson is offering, it’s been long overdue but previously thwarted by Tory politicians with a fetish for small shops on the High Street while simultaneously taking donations from big supermarket owners who were bankrupting every High St in the land.
    This is a gimmick, masquerading as a policy. There will be more initiatives like this until the “men in grey suits” who run the Tory Party finally grow tired of the bumbling bluffer and get rid of him.

  8. This issue was know when the new/widening of the Thanet way was first started. KCC documents issued at the time knew and highlighted the problems in this area in that it was liable to flooding and movement. They even produced literature and pamphlets which I still hold. This indicates that the job was not carried out correctly in the first place. It was KCC’s own highways department that designed the road.

    If you travel along this section from London to Thanet/Herne Bay to your left you can still see the old Thanet Way it is in fact raised above the new road. Why, was it raised because it was known that this was the problem area and subject to flooding.

  9. What on earth is Mackinlay on about? It’s around the third attempt to fix this problem with the road. It needs doing to stop the road sinking into the ground but it will make absolutely zero difference to pollution and congestion and definitely can’t be described as ‘huge benefits’. ‘Essential maintenance’ perhaps!

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