Work has started on a traffic-busting relief road as part of a £230 million housing development off the Thanet Way.

Aerial images show construction is underway at Strode Farm in Herne Bay - with it anticipated the first of 800 homes could be occupied within months.

Central to the project - named Greenwood Gardens - is a new spine road linking the roundabout closest to Herne Bay cemetery with one recently built in Bullockstone Road, diverting motorists away from Herne village.

The on-slip to the Thanet Way will also be closed off and a new access to the dual-carriageway created as part of the first phase of the development, which is being led by housebuilder Countryside Homes and social enterprise Places for People.

Alex Hodge, an associate development director for Countryside Homes, said: “Phase one of construction work at Greenwood Gardens includes the first section of the Herne Relief Road.

“This is an important piece of transport infrastructure which will reduce the volume of traffic travelling through nearby Herne village and will be completed around halfway through the build programme.

“We are expecting to hand over the keys to the first completed homes at Greenwood Gardens this autumn and anticipate that the overall scheme will be completed by 2033.”

Plans for the development were first submitted in 2015 by Hollamby Estates but delayed by a number of legal challenges before outline permission was granted in May 2019.

It will be built in six phases, with the first underway and set to be completed by September next year.

It will include 132 homes - 67 of them to be sold as shared ownership - on land in the north-eastern part of the site, wedged between the Thanet Way and A291 Canterbury Road.

Developers will also reconfigure the A291/A299 roundabout, with its most significant change being the sealing off of the Thanet Way on-slip towards Whitstable.

Motorists will instead have to use a new exit onto the housing development’s spine route, which will be equipped with a traffic-lit junction leading to the A299.

Locals fear the changes to the on-slip – which will make it 120 metres shorter than the current one – could put drivers in danger as they join the dual-carriageway.

“This is an accident waiting to happen,” Graham Jones, of Canterbury Road, previously said in a letter to the city council.

“Vehicles, including cars and lorries, with slow acceleration will have to start from a standstill at the traffic lights, navigate a curved slip-road, and then wait for a gap to enter the carriageway safely.

“This will give rise to situations where considerably faster traffic will be met by slow-moving vehicles.

“It seems to me that attempting to join the westbound carriageway of the Thanet Way is going to be fraught with danger. There is an existing slip-road which serves the purpose adequately.”

However, KCC highways officers believed the new slip-road would “retain a sufficient length to prevent any unacceptable safety impact from arising”, while improving traffic flow.

City council officials argued the “urbanising impacts of the development” would be outweighed by the “public benefits” from the wider relief road.

The relief road is being be funded by contributions from developers behind the new Strode Farm estate, as well as those leading schemes at the former Herne Bay Golf Club and in Hillborough.

Planning conditions stipulate the spine road through the estate must be complete by the time the 410th house at Strode Farm is constructed.

A new provisional completion date for the entire scheme has also been offered, with the original 2031 deadline pushed back to July 2033.

The 800 homes at Strode Farm will be a mix of one and two-bedroom apartments and two, three and four-bedroom houses.

In total, 240 will be “affordable” properties for rental or shared ownership.