VITAL repair work will close a two-mile stretch of A229 for three days.

The Medway-bound carriageway of Blue Bell Hill will be closed from the Running Horse roundabout, Maidstone, to the top, at Lord Lees roundabout, at the of the month.

Motorists will have to find alternative between 9pm on Friday, March 28 and 5am on Monday, March 31, while the resurfacing work, costing £1million, goes ahead. It will be the largest re-surfacing project ever undertaken by Kent Highways.

A 120-strong workforce will work in shifts around the clock to lay 6,400 tonnes of resurfacing material to improve what has become a badly-deteriorated length of what is one of Kent’s most heavily used main routes.

Contractors will also lay 830 new cats’ eyes and paint 9,000 metres of white lines.

Kent County Council said the closure was preferable to the alternative of a programme of work that could have lasted eight weeks.

Geoff Harrison-Mee, director of Kent Highways Services, said: “Rather than putting people through eight weeks of closure, we have decided to go for a short, sharp shock and to close the carriageway for an entire weekend.”

Alternative routes and diversions will be published in advance of the work.