AFTER more than five months of repair works and closures, Charlton Hill on the A435 has reopened.

Charlton Hill on the A435, near Cheltenham, closed to all traffic on Monday, March 20 so that work could be carried out to fix four landslips and was planned to be finished at the end of September. 

Gloucestershire County Council contracted Montel Civil Engineering to undertake essential stabilisation work to the road during this period. 

On Friday, September 8 Gloucestershire Roads announced on social media that the road reopened ahead of schedule. 

A spokesperson for GCC said: "Good news Friday!

"A435 Charlton Hill road , which has been closed for safety improvement repairs and stabilisation since March, has just been reopened. 

"Well done team, all completed well ahead of schedule."

GCC has been monitoring the road since 2014 when part of the crawler lane collapsed and found that there were four separate landslips along the section between Charlton Kings and the Seven Springs roundabout which all needing different approaches to resolve the problem.

The project involved installing sheet piles to stabilise the embankment and carriageway, reaching a depth of 12m and placed along a 441m length.

This road has been fully resurfaced and tree maintenance works have also been carried out, along with improvements to the drainage system.

The crawler lane on the road, previously used for slow moving traffic until it was closed for safety reasons, has now been turned into an uphill ‘safe vehicle-free zone’.

The work cost £3.5 million and was funded by the county council’s Highways Capital programme and the Department for Transport.

Cllr Dom Morris, cabinet member for highways and flood, said: “I’m delighted this road has been reopened to the public three weeks ahead of schedule and I would like to thank our teams for their hard work on it.

“The project was a long time in the making so it’s great news it has now been carried out and road users can benefit from safer, smoother journeys on it.

“I would like to thank everyone for their patience during the closure.”

More information on the scheme is available at https://shorturl.at/amyU7