This is what the new £1.8 million roundabout at the junction of Barton Hill Drive and the A2500 Lower Road at Minster will look like.

Kent County Council’s Richard Skelton, in charge of the project, told Minster parish council work could begin next summer.

KCC is also managing a £4.85m pot for widening the 1km stretch of road from Barton Hill Drive to Cowstead Corner in a second phase planned for Spring 2019.

It will be welcome news for long-suffering motorists

The widening scheme will include a shared footpath and cycle route. But there are no plans to alter Cowstead Corner roundabout which clogs with cars as four lanes of traffic from the A249 Sheppey Way, Brielle Way, Old Sheppey Way and Queenborough Road merge into the Lower Road.

Although work on the roundabout is scheduled for July and August - the height of Sheppey’s holiday season - Mr Skelton said the bulk of construction would take place in a field next to the existing carriageway, keeping disruption to a minimum.

The roundabout includes a fourth spur to access a new housing estate yet to be built.

The money will include £540,000 from the developers of 431 homes at Harps Farm, the final stage of the Thistle Hill development. The balance, for the roundabout, comes from the South East Local Enterprise Partnership.

Farmland for the Lower Road widening scheme is to be handed over free on condition planning permission for more homes alongside Barton Hill Drive is granted. The National Productivity Investment Fund is ploughing £3.195 million into the scheme.

Contractors are expected to be announced in the Spring.

The parish council’s transport and planning chairman Peter MacDonald said: “This scheme will help resolve the unacceptable, long-term problem of congestion along the Lower Road.

"But we have also asked KCC to manage traffic around the fringes at Thistle Hill Way which could include yellow no-parking lines or a clearway.”

The scheme will be discussed by Swale Joint Transportation Board at Swale House, Sittingbourne, on Monday at 5.30pm.