Improvement works on Morlaix Drive in Plymouth are to begin later this month.

The Morlaix Drive Access Improvement Scheme, originally scheduled for 2020 but delayed because of the pandemic, will start from Monday 24 January and will finish by the end of the year.

Morlaix Drive, on the west side of the hospital, is currently a narrow, 300m stretch of single carriageway that links Brest Road with the hospital itself. It is home to the Glenbourne Unit, the ambulance station, the Thornberry Centre and has an access into the multi-storey car park. It is, in parts, too narrow for vehicles to travel along in both directions.

As part of the scheme, Morlaix Drive will be widened to allow for the flow of two-way traffic, including buses, and an upgrade of the existing narrow footway to a shared pedestrian and cycle path.

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Not only will this make bus timetables to and from the Derriford area more reliable, it will also ease congestion in and around the hospital and in time, hopefully encourage more people to use the bus to access the hospital.

In addition, some changes will be made at Brest Road where, at the moment traffic often queues at busy times of the day, and the opening of the Forder Valley Link Road later this year means that traffic movements and the routing of buses are set to change in the area in the next few years.

Pedestrian crossing facilities will be upgraded as part of the project and a new shared-use path will be installed on Brest Road connecting to William Prance Road

Once works are completed, traffic travelling to Derriford Roundabout from Morlaix Drive will be able to do so via William Prance Road, which was recently upgraded as part of the Derriford Transport Scheme. Staff and visitors to the hospital will still be able to use Morlaix Drive and the southbound exit from Derriford Roundabout onto Brest Road will remain open to all vehicles.

The works will also include the planting of over 50 'specimen' trees, ornamental plantings and bat and insect boxes along Morlaix Drive.