A key milestone has been reached in a multi-million-pound transport project, changing the face of a major road.

Reporter Joe Crossley went behind the scenes to see how work is progressing almost a year since it began…

The Grovehurst Road improvement scheme, between Iwade and Kemsley, near Sittingbourne, has not gone completely to plan since it began last September.

The project, to replace the existing dumbbell junction with a two-bridge flyover, has been hit with delays which have seen the end date pushed back to next summer while road closures have, at times, caused gridlock.

Drivers and bus companies spoke out against the scheme’s organisation, including the A249 going down to one lane, as the £32.7 million scheme got off the ground.

But there is now good news for motorists sitting in traffic on the carriageway, heading to or from Sheppey.

Jackson Civil Engineering, which has been contracted by Kent County Council to deliver the scheme, announced in August that it would be installing a new bridge during a weekend closure of the A249 at Grovehurst.

So this was an opportune time for me to see the work in action.

I headed down to the contractor’s base near Iwade on Saturday just before 10am where I was welcomed by southern regional director Steve Horton.

He showed me inside the blue and yellow compound building and after undergoing an induction and donning bright orange overalls and a hard hat he took me to the closed carriageway.

The site was busy with engineers, most of whom are from the local area, buzzing around while there was lots of clanging of metal and beeping of trucks and vehicles.

Some of the workers were putting large steel rods into the top part of the concrete frame of the bridge, while others were preparing for the installation of the final two of the four 100-tonne beams that form the bridge deck.

These are made out of steel and are 46 metres long and two metres wide and were being put in place using a huge 750-tonne crane which is 75 metres tall.

They had been transported from Hythe on two lorries and were on the carriageway waiting to be lifted by 11am.

Mr Horton, who has been in the civil engineering industry for almost 40 years, told me the installation was a particularly exciting stage of the project.

The Kings Hill resident says it was finally a chance for people to see visible progress as much of the work so far had been related to earthworks and installing the foundations of the bridge.

He said: “It is nice to have this landmark moment to share with the public after a lot of work that they can’t see from driving past.

“But work has been taking place for almost a year now and this is stage 15 of 19 for the bridge.

“The foundations have to be right of course and there have been 20 weeks of planning for this part of the build.

“Before we started work here there was one single bridge with a roundabout at either end which reduces capacity and reduces traffic flows.

“The new bridge will enable a much larger roundabout gyratory system to be implemented over the top of the A249 which will assist traffic flows in the future.

“The key to any project like this is the planning because if you get it right then hopefully everything will go smoothly. Now one thing we can't do is we can't control the weather.

“Schemes such as this with major earthworks are very weather-dependent and we have had quite a bit of wet weather earlier on in the spring and over the winter which is part of the reason we have been delayed.

“We've overcome those issues and we're heading towards completion early summer next year.”

As it happened, weather played a part in this stage too.

High winds meant the installation was not completed until8.30pm.

The rest of the 30 hours of the road closure was spent constructing formwork – a temporary structure used to contain and shape concrete as it's poured.

This concrete is now being put onto the structure, and parapets and guard rails are being installed before asphaltis laid.

It is set to be open for traffic in spring next year.

Mr Horton added that once all the upgrades are completed it will help future-proof the road network from expected population growth in the area.

KCC estimates that there will be 30% more traffic using Grovehurst in 2037 than there is today.

This is because Swale council’s Local Plan, adopted in 2017, outlined that it will need to provide more than 13,000 homes across the borough.

Some 7,899 of these will be built in the A249 corridor with Key Street in Sittingbourne, also set to be revamped.

That part of the scheme has not yet started.

As there was around a six-hour delay to the installation I decided to call it quits and get out of the wind.

While I was able to go home, there were engineers on site until 2am today (Monday, August 2) when all the work scheduled was completed and the road reopened.

There are further closures to come for the construction of a new southern gyratory, however.

From 8pm on Monday, September 9 until next spring the A249 Maidstone-bound exit slip road to Bobbing will be closed.

The closure will take place from the Grovehurst Road junction.

All diverted traffic will travel Maidstone-bound using the A249 to Bobbing. It will then return Sheppey-bound, using the exit slip road, towards the Grovehurst Road junction.