Q’town Arterial Road: UK engineers finish major motorway project in 48 hours

The BBC is reporting that a complex civil engineering project in the United Kingdom has been completed over this weekend and was finished eight hours early.

The project involved the demolition of a pre-existing bridge and the construction of a new stretch of the M25 motorway that circles London.

This stretch of motorway normally carries between 4,000 and 6,000 vehicles each hour.

The eight-kilometre stretch of road was closed at 9pm on Friday, March 15 and re-opened yesterday, Sunday, March 17 at 10pm.

By contrast the Queenstown arterial road is only 670 metres long and is planned to take at least three years to finish.

Crux has reported that up to 60 managers are still involved in the Queenstown arterial project and the Queenstown Lakes District Council says further budget overruns – beyond $128 million – are possible.

There is no funding available for stages two and three of the arterial road earning it the title of 'the road to nowhere'.

Rino Tirikatene, MP for Te Tai Tonga, representing the New Zealand Government (left), and Jim Boult, Queenstown Lakes District Mayor, at the official sod turning for stage one of the Queenstown arterial road in July 2021.

(Image: NZTA Waka Kotahi).

The $128 million price tag means the road is costing $190,000 per metre.

Proposed work on the BP roundabout at Frankton is also expected to take around three years to complete and has the potential to cause massive disruption during the Christmas holiday and ski season periods in particular.