A1066 Victoria Road: Diss roadworks schedule shake up looks to bring some relief ahead of Christmas

The next phase of major roadworks in Diss has been pushed back until after Christmas.

Work to improve the Sawmills Road junction with Victoria Road, which had been planned to get under way on Monday, will now take place in the new year.

The change in schedule was announced at a meeting of Diss Town Council on Wednesday.

“Sadly, we’ve hit some snags with the weather and when we took the road surface off,” said county councillor Keith Kiddie.

“It seems we will need to redo the road bed, which has added some time, but it’s one of those issues where, if we hadn’t dealt with it now, we’d end up having to come back in two years time to do it again.

“We’d rather do it properly, do it once and get it done so it lasts for 15 years.”

Revised plans will now see road surfacing at the Vince’s Road junction completed over the weekend of November 19 and 20, with traffic lights installed and operational by a weather-dependant target date of December 1.

In order to give motorists a break from roadworks in the area during the run up to Christmas, the drainage works at the Sawmills Road junction have, instead, been pushed back to a date in January.

“We want to give the town a break and to give people a chance to enjoy the pleasures of Diss, spend money here and see the lights in the run up to Christmas,” said Cllr Kiddie.

“That will allow us some time to get the pedestrian access causeway near the Morrisons roundabout resurfaced in the first week of December, which won’t affect any traffic and will make pedestrian access much safer and better for everyone.

“I appreciate everybody has had a really tough time over these roadworks and I get it, but we’re spending about half a million pounds on this, so we’ve got to get it right.”

The proposed resurfacing of the A1066 in Roydon has been put back to March.

Cllr Kiddie added: “I was very keen to get this money spent in Diss and Roydon before the new financial year and, while I apologise for the grief it has caused, I don’t apologise for fighting to spend this money.”