DRIVERS travelling between Shinfield and Arborfield will be faced with a seven-and-a-half mile diversion when a short section of the A327 is shut.

DRIVERS travelling between Shinfield and Arborfield will be faced with a seven-and-a-half mile diversion when a short section of the A327 is shut.

Just under 500 metres of the road will be shut, between the Magpie and Parrot pub and the bridge over the River Loddon, but drivers will be faced with a detour that is 24 times longer than the stretch of road closed.

The Reading Road will shut for three weeks, starting on August 3, as flood-relief culverts, each just 15 metres in length, are put across the road.

Structural work on the A329(M) will now be postponed until next year so that it does not coincide with the closure.

John Kaiser, executive member for highways at Wokingham Borough Council, said the work was being timetabled to create as little disruption as possible.

He said: “The works are both on major arterial routes.

“There are three routes between the M3 and Reading – the A327, the A33 and the A329(M).

“If we take out the A327 and A329(M) we would reduce the choice people would have.

“The work on the motorway is structural but it can wait for another 12 months.

“Next summer the A327 and the Shinfield Relief Road will be finished.” Cllr Kaiser added that the diversion will be a long way, but added that it was the sensible route for HGVs to be travelling through the area.

“We don’t like the route we have got but we have got a 19th century road structure and, short of knocking down some houses, there is nothing else we can do,” he said.

If the A327 was not shut, Hochtief Construction, who will carry out the work, say the road would have faced five to six months of single lane traffic problems.

Traffic from Reading during the works will instead be diverted north of the M4 towards the Winnersh Triangle, through Winnersh and Sindlesham, and on towards Arborfield Cross.