ROAD users in Cumbria will be able to keep up to date with progress on the £2.2m A590 Greenodd roundabout scheme through a newly-launched Highways Agency webpage.

The Highways Agency, which operates the A590, is providing a new roundabout where the road meets the A5092. The roundabout will provide safer joining arrangements to and from the A5092 county council road.

The A5092 currently forms a T-junction onto the A590 with drivers having to pull into a gap in the central reservation to turn right to join the westbound A590 towards Ulverston. The gap also provides a right turn from the westbound carriageway onto the A5092.

The project is one of 123 in the Government’s £317 million ‘pinch-point’ initiative – a two year programme of targeted works being delivered alongside larger schemes and routine maintenance and improvements along the strategic road network.

The pinch-point programme, devised with the input of councils and local enterprise partnerships, is designed to help stimulate new development and local economic growth by improving road safety and tackling congestion bottle necks. A total of 28 projects, worth £66m, are being delivered across the North West.

Surveys, slope stabilisation and some site clearance have already taken place, and advance earthworks for Greenodd roundabout will start in the summer with construction of the roundabout starting in autumn. The project should be completed early in the new year.

The Highways Agency has given the scheme its own webpage at www.highways.gov.uk/roads/road-projects/a590-greenodd-junction-improvement.

Anyone visiting the page can also sign up email alert progress reports.

Highways Agency project sponsor Samantha Whittaker said: “We appreciate that there is a lot of public interest in progress with this junction improvement and people can get the latest updates by visiting the webpage as well as signing up for email alerts.

“With preparation work off the carriageway well underway we will be entering the construction phase in the summer and road users may find it useful to use the webpage and email alerts to get the latest information on progress as well as any traffic management we will be using.”