A MAJOR road in and out of Taunton will re-open next week following months of restrictions during improvement works.

An official ribbon cutting ceremony will take place at 11am on Thursday (September 1) to mark the end of the £8.3million scheme at the Toneway-Creech castle junction.

The project, which was postponed during the pandemic, has taken a year to complete and has seen single lane traffic and more recently night-time closures.

Starting in early August last year, the scheme has been undertaken with the aim of easing traffic congestion at peak times.

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The new layout will have increased capacity by widening and adding additional lanes.

There will be three straight ahead lanes in both directions on Toneway.

And there will also be three lanes for vehicles turning from the A38 Bridgwater Road from either direction onto Toneway.

The right turn lane from Toneway onto the A38 Bridgwater Road north will be much longer to cope with increasing traffic volumes.

The improved junction will have an integrated parallel crossing to offer significant benefits for cyclists and pedestrians.

During the work, the A38 Bridgwater Road to the north of Toneway was closed to traffic.

The Toneway improvements follow a £19.2million project at Junction 25 of the M5 on the outskirts of the county town.

That work was aimed at cutting peak hour traffic and to avoid vehicles backing up onto the motorway.

It involved signalisation and enlarging the roundabout, widening of the eastern exit, a new roundabout to access the proposed Nexus 25 employment site and safer pedestrian and cycling facilities.