A31 Dorset: Ignored/Forgotten/Ringwood Improvements

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Richardf
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A31 Dorset: Ignored/Forgotten/Ringwood Improvements

Post by Richardf »

As part of the South coast trunk route i think this has become a significantly overlooked road as far as investment is concerned. All attention of late has been on filling in SC gaps in the A30 and A303, the somewhat glamorous member of the southwest road community and yet the A31 is in my opinion just as important and at times gets as busy and congested as the remaining single carriageway gaps on the aforementioned roads. Yet it has been totally ignored for years.

Back in the days of roads to prosperity there were substantial plans to dual and improve the old twisty single carriageway section. These were possibly overkill and not economically viable but neither is doing nothing to it at all, which seems to have been the policy and thanks to recent announcements and plans looks set to remain so.

Sandwiched between 2 sections of good or high quality DC this busy and sometimes dangerous stretch of road needs some form of substantial investment to improve it, whether it be dual carriageway or widened and realigned single carriageway, i am not sure.

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SteveA30
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Re: A31 Dorset - Ignored and Forgotten?

Post by SteveA30 »

Some of it has had a boundary wide enough for D2 for years, between Red Post crossroads and the improved section nearer Bere Regis. Recent pipe laying alongside has created what looks at first glance, like a second carriageway. The HE could grasp this chance to dual it, as the ground has already been disturbed.
A small bypass to the south of Winterbourne Zelston would then link up the improved sections either side.

The section alongside the long wall at Charlborough Park, needs parallel dualling, before going offline at Stag Gate, by heading straight ahead along the u/c road towards Sturminster Marshall for a short distance, then heading south to the Roundhouse rbt (A350), still as a D2, breaking up the long sections of S2.

A mini bypass to the south of the tiny hamlet that may be part of Corfe Mullen, using the S&D railway route, would complete the improvements.

Dualling the Wimborne and Ferndown bp's is a bigger job with a wider impact on more roads.
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jackal
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Re: A31 Dorset - Ignored and Forgotten?

Post by jackal »

It'd be nice to have, sure, but not the highest priority given the busiest sections are already dualled. I would, for instance, see the Dorchester bypass as more in need of dualling than remaining sections of A31.
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sotonsteve
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Re: A31 Dorset - Ignored and Forgotten?

Post by sotonsteve »

The A31 and A35 are certainly in need of full dualling as far as the Weymouth turn on the Dorchester Bypass. Even out of season Weymouth and Dorchester put a sufficient enough strain on the single carriageway sections. Having said that, the section between Dorchester and Honiton is getting pretty heavily loaded with traffic nowadays, enough to warrant investment. There are some very steep hills without climbing lanes and it isn't uncommon for traffic to crawl at 20mph or less behind a lorry or caravan struggling up the hill, especially heading east out of Chideock and Winterbourne Abbas.

Some may argue that upgrading the A303 will take traffic off the A31/A35, but I doubt it will have much impact, if any. In my opinion, a lot of traffic on the A31/A35 goes to destinations in Dorset rather than from Southampton to Honiton.

The other issue with the A31 and A35 seems to be that the road is falling apart. Clearly, and unsurprisingly, the road wasn't built for the traffic loading it takes, and a good few bits look in need of a full reconstruction to keep it going. But as said, the A31 and A35 seem to have been ignored and forgotten, with absolutely nothing done since the 20th century apart from some barmy roundabout "improvements" involving urbanisation and signalisation at Canford Bottom and extreme deflections at Dorchester.
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RichardA35
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Re: A31 Dorset - Ignored and Forgotten?

Post by RichardA35 »

Steve, how does "Dorchester to Honiton being pretty heavily loaded" equate with an AADT of ~12,000 west of Axminster? That's a country lane compared to some places.
Wimborne area has AADT of ~31,000 IIRC and is in far more need of intervention than further west.
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Re: A31 Dorset - Ignored and Forgotten?

Post by A320Driver »

An upgrade west of Dorchester is simply not going to happen now. Any faint hope was killed off when the Honiton Eastern BP was axed as part of the A303 Marsh-Honiton scheme in 1997.

Bridport, Chideock, Axminster should count themselves lucky that they got their bypasses when they did in the 80s/90s.

Agree that improvement east of Dorchester is needed though.
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SteveA30
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Re: A31 Dorset - Ignored and Forgotten?

Post by SteveA30 »

Chideock is still waiting. I presume you meant Charmouth.
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Re: A31 Dorset - Ignored and Forgotten?

Post by A320Driver »

Sorry yes, quite correct!
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jackal
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Re: A31 Dorset - Ignored and Forgotten?

Post by jackal »

sotonsteve wrote:The A31 and A35 are certainly in need of full dualling as far as the Weymouth turn on the Dorchester Bypass.
The bypass West of there is also very busy as it is essentially a multiplex between the East-West and North-South (Weymouth to Yeovil and beyond) routes. It only really gets better once you're past the A37 turn off.
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Re: A31 Dorset - Ignored and Forgotten?

Post by dorsetlover »

If they are going to upgrade the A31 it should be between Bere Regis and Red Post as the road is very narrow and also is a very slow section also hopefully if they feel it would be better they might link the roads up making the roads miss the roundabout at Bere Regis. And on the A35 when the D2 ends after Puddletown there is something that looks like a small stub which could mean it could have gone further.
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Re: A31 Dorset - Ignored and Forgotten?

Post by Richardf »

Like I said on my original post there have been lots of plans in the past but nothing was ever done. Dorchester to the current D2 was going to be dualled as was Bere Regis to Red Post.

I think Canford Bottom is a complete fudge. Isolated D2 Hamburger with S2 either side. Can't see how that helps.
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sotonsteve
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Re: A31 Dorset - Ignored and Forgotten?

Post by sotonsteve »

RichardA35 wrote:Steve, how does "Dorchester to Honiton being pretty heavily loaded" equate with an AADT of ~12,000 west of Axminster? That's a country lane compared to some places.
Well, you could argue that, but you have to bear in mind that there are a lot of single carriageways with similar or greater traffic flows which don't have such steep gradients and don't have a relatively high proportion of tractors, caravans and lorries like a primary/trunk road like the A35 does. Travelling on the A35 is pot luck. If you don't get stuck behind something you can have a lovely clear run, but if you do get stuck behind one or two vehicles it can have a huge impact. It's not a road with good journey time reliability in my experience.

One other thing I tend to find with traffic figures for roads is that the less urbanised an area is the more polar the differences are between day and night. In rural areas traffic flows really do die out at night, whilst closer to built up areas traffic dies out later in the evening and builds up earlier in the morning. The net result of this is, a rural road may appear less busy, but during the daytime it can be just as busy. I'm not saying that is definitely the case here, but it's just an observation.

And if we are going to quote traffic volumes, exactly what AADT does the M271 north of the M27 have, yet it's a D2M?
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Re: A31 Dorset - Ignored and Forgotten?

Post by Tinpusher »

The British Geological Survey map viewer, with borehole scans enabled and zoomed in to the appropriate distance to see the borehole scans, shows lots of potential routes for the A35, including Chiderock bypass.

Interesting to see a southerly/easterly bypass route of Honiton indicated by a suspicious line of blue circles (boreholes).
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Re: A31 Dorset - Ignored and Forgotten?

Post by RichardA35 »

Tinpusher wrote:The British Geological Survey map viewer, with borehole scans enabled and zoomed in to the appropriate distance to see the borehole scans, shows lots of potential routes for the A35, including Chiderock bypass.

Interesting to see a southerly/easterly bypass route of Honiton indicated by a suspicious line of blue circles (boreholes).
That's the Honiton Eastern Bypass mentioned upthread. Chideock/Morecombelake and Honiton East were all killed off c. 1997 at a similar time to when the A35 was proposed for detrunking.
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Re: A31 Dorset - Ignored and Forgotten?

Post by Richardf »

dorsetlover wrote:If they are going to upgrade the A31 it should be between Bere Regis and Red Post as the road is very narrow and also is a very slow section also hopefully if they feel it would be better they might link the roads up making the roads miss the roundabout at Bere Regis. And on the A35 when the D2 ends after Puddletown there is something that looks like a small stub which could mean it could have gone further.
Odd place to end a section of dual at Red Post. The road directly east of there is as bad if not worse than the preceeding section with the wide verges. The DC if built and not continued would have slammed 70mph traffic straight onto narrow, unimproved S2. Never seen anything anywhere about how the DC would have continued.

Incidentally I agree the current pipe laying works a Bere Regis is a wasted opportunity to improve things. Not dualling maybe but perhaps a filter lane and widening at the roundabout to give A35 to A31 a free flow link.
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Re: A31 Dorset - Ignored and Forgotten?

Post by SteveA30 »

Red Post is where the wide boundary fences end so, my assumption that dualling from there to Bere Regis was the intention is correct. I've asked HE if dualling can now be done, given that the ground of a second carriageway width has been disturbed anyway. Interesting to see what they say, assuming they reply at all.
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Re: A31 Dorset - Ignored and Forgotten?

Post by Chris5156 »

SteveA30 wrote:Red Post is where the wide boundary fences end so, my assumption that dualling from there to Bere Regis was the intention is correct. I've asked HE if dualling can now be done, given that the ground of a second carriageway width has been disturbed anyway. Interesting to see what they say, assuming they reply at all.
Surely building a second carriageway will require detailed planning and millions of pounds to be allocated to it, plus the engagement of a contractor who will have to find people to work on the scheme. I doubt the HE's main reason for not dualling the A31 is that they'll have to strip off the topsoil when they get on site.
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Re: A31 Dorset - Ignored and Forgotten?

Post by J6onM27 »

Always wondered if they would ever dual Ferndown to Bere Regis. But what route would it take bearing in mind also Poole is not the easiest place to get to as well!
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Re: A31 Dorset - Ignored and Forgotten?

Post by Richardf »

SteveA30 wrote:Red Post is where the wide boundary fences end so, my assumption that dualling from there to Bere Regis was the intention is correct. I've asked HE if dualling can now be done, given that the ground of a second carriageway width has been disturbed anyway. Interesting to see what they say, assuming they reply at all.
"Not within current budget" would be the presumed answer. If any.
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Re: A31 Dorset - Ignored and Forgotten?

Post by Richardf »

J6onM27 wrote:Always wondered if they would ever dual Ferndown to Bere Regis. But what route would it take bearing in mind also Poole is not the easiest place to get to as well!
In many ways the A35 to Poole would be easier to dual than the A31. Current road is straighter and could mostly be dualled online through Wareham Forest. The problem would be then linking it to the A31 DC and avoid Poole. Previous plans to link Poole to the A31 would have required traffic to enter the outskirts of the town first, which isn't ideal for long distance traffic. My solution would be an new DC between Upton and Wimborne, replacing both the A350 and A349. Would serve long distance traffic and give Poole its equivalent of the A338 Bournemouth Spur Road.
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