A3088

The A3088 is an interesting road in east Somerset, whose current route is entirely a bypass of the road's original course.

Route

Yeovil - Stoke sub Hamdon

The road starts at Horsey Roundabout at the southern end of Yeovil's dualled Queensway link road, which is a multiplex of the A30 and A37, with the former number dominant. From the roundabout, the A3088 heads west, initially on a non-primary dual carriageway, but it soon narrows at the second set of traffic lights. After the third set of lights, subsequent junctions are just give way, with the A3088, Lysander Road, maintaining priority.

We now reach the Lysander Roundabout, where the non-primary A3088 meets the primary A3088 spur which links southwards along Watercombe Lane to the A30 (and indeed takes primary status from that road). Remaining primary, we follow the imaginatively titled 'Western Relief Road' around lots more trading estates. At another roundabout at the end of the Western Relief Road, the A3088 turns left onto an old railway line.

Cartgate Link Rd

The A3088 is a busy road, full of slow traffic, with no overtaking opportunities. It gives the impression of being built in a cutting, although that may just be the tall trees along either side, so any hope of widening would be expensive. There is just one junction (a minor road to serve Montacute) on the 4-mile run up to the Cartgate Roundabout and the A303, where the A3088 ends.

History

The original route of the A3088 shown in 1956, with the present route overlayed

The A3088 number was created on 1st April, 1933, to take over a section of the A358, when that route was redirected over the A374, and the A303 was extended eastwards towards London.

The modern A3088 has a completely different route to the original which ran from the Fiveways Roundabout down Preston Road then onto New Road before crossing the modern route on an overbridge. It then ran to the A303 through Montacute and Stoke sub Hambdon (where there was a junction with the B3165, now the A356) before ending at a junction on the A303 near Petherton Bridge.

The railway along which the modern road runs, the Yeovil to Taunton line, fell victim to the Beeching Axe and was closed in 1964. The modern route of the A3088 was constructed on the route of the trackbed and was opened on 29 June 1984 by Lord Poyton, former Transport Minister. Cost was £4.2 million.