THE A4440 Southern Link Road will be closed for a week later this month to allow a new railway bridge to be put in place.

The closure is part of the project to fully dual the road linking the Powick roundabout to the M5.

The extension to the railway bridge has been built on site during the last few months and, at the end of May, the 1,500-tonne bridge span will be manoeuvred into place.

Excavation of the railway embankment for the new part of the bridge and moving the bridge extension into its final resting place will take place during a full closure of the A4440, including of the pavement, between the Norton and Whittington roundabouts, from 8pm on Thursday, May 24, to 6am on Friday, June 1.

A diversion route will be signposted.

The railway will also be closed from Saturday, May 26 to Thursday, May 31, and Great Western Railway will provide replacement buses between Worcester Shrub Hill and Pershore.

Ken Pollock of Worcestershire County Council said: “Seeing the bridge take shape over the last couple of months has been very exciting, not least from an engineering point of view, but also as the construction of this bridge takes the county an important step closer to the Southern Link Road being dualled.”

The road is an essential part of Worcestershire’s strategic transport network and provides an important link between the M5 and Great Malvern, the wider Malvern Hills district, Herefordshire and Wales.

It is also a bypass for the city centre, especially for those in south and west Worcester, and provides one of only two road crossings of the River Severn at Worcester.

More than 30,000 cars use the road every weekday.

The extension of the railway bridge will support the dualling of the A4440 between the Norton and Whittington roundabouts.

When this has been completed, all eastbound traffic will travel on two lanes beneath the existing railway bridge and westbound traffic will travel on two lanes beneath the new bridge extension.