Overnight temporary lights on Bridge Road

Temporary traffic lights will be introduced overnight on Bridge Road in Exeter on Thursday 28 April.

From 11pm on Thursday until 5am on Friday morning, traffic lights will be in place on a short length of the road over Countess Wear Bridge. 

This will provide the contractor with temporary working space to access the upstream wall of Countess Wear Bridge with a “cherrypicker”, allowing an Ecologist to install bat roost exclusion measures.

Bats are roosting in areas of the bridge masonry which would be disturbed by the proposed construction of the new cantilever bridge for cyclists and pedestrians, so measures are being taken to allow the bats to leave the affected roosts, while providing them with new roosts. 

The bats have many other roosting opportunities in the area, including new bat boxes already installed by our contractor. All work is being undertaken under a European Protected Species Licence granted by Natural England.

Pedestrians and cyclists will be able to access Bridge Road during this overnight period, although they may be marshalled through the works, and therefore they are urged to take care and follow instructions from the site staff.  If works finish well in advance of 5am, the traffic lights will be removed as soon as possible.

Delays are also expected when the Canal Bridges on Bridge Road are opened at 11am on Thursday (28 April) for routine maintenance and at 9am on Saturday (30 April) for boat passage along the canal. This is expected to take around 10 minutes.

The timings are approximate and traffic delays can continue for a while after the openings until the tailbacks clear.

To subscribe to regular updates visit https://new.devon.gov.uk/bridgeroad/subscribe