Everything about A12 Road totally explained
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A12 Road
| Northbound exits |
Junction |
Southbound exits |
Essex
| M25, Brentwood A1023 |
11 (M25 J28 - Brook Street) |
M25, Brentwood A1023 |
| Brentwood A1023, Mountnessing B1002 |
12 (Mountnessing Marylands) |
Brentwood A1023, Mountnessing B1002 |
| No Exit |
13 (Trueloves) |
Ingatestone B1002 |
| Margaretting |
14 (Furze Hill) |
No Exit |
| Chelmsford A414, Margaretting B1002 |
15 (Webb’s Farm) |
Chelmsford A414, Margaretting B1002 |
| B1007 |
16 (Stock Road) |
B1007 |
| A130, Chelmsford A1114 |
17 (Howe Green) |
A130, Chelmsford A1114 |
| A414 |
18 (Sandon) |
A414 |
| No Exit |
19 (Boreham) |
Chelmsford A138 |
| Hatfield Peverel |
20a (Hatfield Peveral South) |
No Exit |
| No Exit |
20b (Hatfield Peveral North) |
Hatfield Peverel |
| Witham B1389 |
21 (Lynfield Motors) |
No Exit |
| No Exit |
22 (Coleman's) |
Witham B1389 |
| Kelvedon B1024 |
23 (Kelvedon South) |
No Exit |
| No Exit |
24 (Kelvedon North) |
Kelvedon B1024 |
| Braintree, Stansted A120, B1408 |
25 (Marks Tey) |
Braintree, Stansted A120, B1408 |
| A1124 |
26 (Eight Ash Green) |
A1124 |
| Colchester A133 |
27 (Spring Lane) |
No Exit |
| Harwich, Clacton A120, Colchester A1232 |
29 (Ardleigh Crown) |
Harwich, Clacton A120, Colchester A1232 |
Suffolk
| B1029 |
30 (Park Lane Birchwood) |
B1029 |
| East Bergholt |
31 |
East Bergholt |
| Capel St. Mary |
32a (Capel St. Mary South) |
Capel St. Mary |
| C475 London Road |
32b (Bentley Longwood) |
C475 London Road |
| London, Ipswich A14, A1214 |
33 (A14 J55 - Copdock Mill) |
End of concurrency with A14 |
The
A12 is a major road in
England, a
trunk road for most of its length, running from
London to
Great Yarmouth in
Norfolk. The road forms part of the unsigned
Euroroute E30. Unlike most
A roads, the A12 (together with the
A14 and the
A55) has junction numbers as if it were a
motorway. In
2007 it was named as Britain's worst road in a survey by
Cornhill Insurance.
Route
Starting just north of the
Blackwall Tunnel where it connects end on to the
A102, it heads north through
Bow,
Old Ford and
Hackney Wick, then north east through
Leyton,
Leytonstone,
Wanstead,
Redbridge,
Gants Hill and
Romford, then into
Essex, passing
Brentwood,
Chelmsford and
Colchester. In
Suffolk, it passes
Ipswich,
Woodbridge and
Saxmundham, then follows the coast through
Lowestoft before entering Norfolk passing through
Gorleston and ending at Great Yarmouth.
London
The section from the Lea Interchange to Leytonstone, which is all
dual carriageway, was built in the 1990s following the removal of
protestors. The old section as far as
Wanstead was rebuilt as a dual carriageway. Prior to that, the A12 started at the
Green Man Roundabout at Leytonstone, and was single carriageway west of
Wanstead tube station. It now has an underpass at that roundabout, which again is a junction with the old A11. South of the Lea Interchange the road was built in the late 1960s as the
East Cross Route and was previously the A102 and A102(M). This section has a triple-layer interchange with the
A11 at Bow Road and connects to the
A13 at the southern end.
East of Wanstead, the A12 runs roughly due east. It is known as
Eastern Avenue, then Eastern Avenue West and Eastern Avenue East, built in the 1920s as a bypass for the section of the
Roman road from
Colchester to
London running through
Ilford and
Romford (today's
A118). The eastern end of the Eastern Avenue is
Gallows Corner in the
London Borough of Havering, just east of Romford. The junction also marks the start-point of the
A127 Southend Arterial Road, also 1920s vintage. At the roundabout, an extemporised two-lane
flyover still provides priority for A12 eastbound to A127 traffic (and vice versa). However, the A12 now veers roughly north-eastward, because it starts to follow the course of the Roman road; the Romans started building this road from Colchester, their original capital for the province. However, the 2.5 mile (4 km) stretch from Gallows Corner to the junction with the
M25 motorway, called Colchester Road, is still perfectly straight. The M25 junction is number 28; it also marks where the A12 crosses the boundary from London to Essex.
Essex
Originally, the A12 followed the route of the Roman road closely and so was fairly straight, but there are now several town bypasses, so the road through Essex now has several
meanders. The A12 formerly went through
Brentwood,
Mountnessing,
Ingatestone,
Margaretting,
Chelmsford,
Boreham,
Hatfield Peverel,
Witham,
Kelvedon,
Copford,
Stanway and
Colchester, but these are all now bypassed, and the A12 is close to
motorway standard for its whole length in Essex.
It is this stretch of the A12, particularly between Chelmsford and Colchester, which has led to the poor reputation for surface quality of the A12. This is mainly for its bumpy or potholed surface, mostly due to worn concrete surfaces, especially on the Kelvedon bypass, also between Hatfield Peverel and Witham, and between Copford and Stanway. These bypasses, plus the Chelmsford bypass in its entirety, have still not been replaced with tarmaced roads.
Colchester
Built in 1982, the A12 Colchester bypass provides an uninterrupted dual carriageway where the national speed limit (70 mph / 113 km/h) applies.
Before 1982, the A12 took a route much closer to Colchester itself, and although still a bypass it consisted of urban single carriageways with roundabouts and pedestrian crossings. The old bypass is, of course, still in existence – the western half is now part of the
A1124 and the eastern half part of the
A133.
Suffolk
The Suffolk stretch of the A12 starts with the
Capel St Mary by-pass. Originally the route from the Northern end of this bypass ran through the villages of Washbrook and Copdock and into
Ipswich. When Ipswich's Southern by-pass was built in the early 1980s, the route picked up from the northern Capel St Mary junction (now numbered 32b), to pass to the West of the original line -- this allowed the relevant ground works and interchanges to be completed with minimal traffic disruption. The old
dual carriageway through Washbrook and Copdock is blocked off at White's Corner and was renumbered to be the C475. A footpath still exists which enables passage underneath the A14.
Ipswich
The old route through Ipswich was renumbered as the
A1214 following construction of the Ipswich Southern By-pass. The old route is more locally known by the road names, notably "London Road" to the Town Centre and Woodbridge Road out the other side.
The Ipswich Southern By-pass allows the A12 to overlap the
A14 to Seven Hills Interchange, ironically 7 miles from the Copdock junction, where the A12 reappears and heads North with at-grade roundabout junctions past BT Adastral Park at
Martlesham and around the Woodbridge bypass.
For most of its remaining length through Suffolk the A12 is a
single carriageway road and in many places its speed limit is less than the national limit, for example as it passes through towns and villages. During 2003/2004 some of these speed restrictions were further reduced from 40mph to 30mph. There are, though, a few stretches of dual carriageway between the Woodbridge bypass and Lowestoft (at Wickham Market, Saxmundham, Wangford and Kessingland).This section of the A12 was detrunked in 2001 as part of the Highways Agency's streamlining of its Trunk Road Network. Control was therefore passed to the local authorities.
Just south of
Blythburgh, the old
milestone shows is it 100 miles to London.
Lowestoft
The A12 runs through Lowestoft for about 5 miles (8 km) on urban 30 mph (48 km/h) limited roads, however as of June 2006 the A12 now follows the course of the new single carriageway 40 mph Southern Relief Road that joins the original A12 at Lowestoft bascule bridge. A further impediment is the harbour bridge, which has three lanes, the centre lane operating as a one-way addition to whichever direction of flow is deemed greater according to time of day.
An alternative route avoiding Lowestoft is available through
Oulton Broad (the town of), but again via urban roads and a bridge (A1117).
The presence of these bridge choke points can cause serious disruption to north-south trunk traffic, especially when local traffic is added during rush hours.
An adequate bypass for Lowestoft would need to be well to the west, even to the west of
Oulton Broad (the body of water), and its route would have to consider the great areas of marshland in that area. For that reason an often discussed compromise is a third bridge, crossing Lake Lothing, linking the sections of urban spine-road that run approximately along the western edge of Lowestoft.
Norfolk
Gorleston
From a point just south west of the mouth of the
River Yare, northwards to the point where it crosses the River Yare in
Great Yarmouth, the A12 now follows the route originally used by the railway line from Lowestoft to its terminus north of Breydon Bridge at Vauxhall Roundabout where the
A47 also terminates.
Improvements underway
Improvements are being made to the junction between the A12 and the M25 to increase slip-road capacity in particular for clockwise M25 traffic turning north onto the A12 and to ease congestion on the Brook Street Roundabout (Currently serving M25,A12 and local Brentwood traffic as the A1023). These works are scheduled to be completed in Spring 2008.
The
bascule bridge in
Lowestoft, built in
1972,
is undergoing refurbishment, with works expected to be completed in April 2008. Long closures to traffic have angered local businesses who feel they're losing out on trade.
In February 2008,
Essex County Council announced it would be holding the first
public inquiry carried into a major trunk route in Britain, carried out by a local authority. The inquiry will be headed by Sir David Rowlands,
KCB, a former Permanent Secretary at the Department for Transport. The inquiry will begin taking submissions in April and it's intended by
Essex County Council that its findings will be used to press for improvements to the A12.
Proposed improvements
Proposals are in place to improve the
A120 between
Braintree and the junction with the A12.
As of February 2008 the
East of England Regional Assembly prioritised the scheme for start of works in the 2011/12 – 2015/16 period, with completion post 2016
.
Further Information
Get more info on 'A12 Road'.
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