Delayed A63 underpass scheme nears completion

A major road scheme in Hull city centre is nearing completion, National Highways has said.

Work started in 2020 on the £355m Castle Street project to build a new split-level junction which involved lowering part of the busy road through an underpass.

The scheme takes part of the A63 underground, allowing for Ferensway and Commercial Road to meet at street level.

Senior project manager Fran Oliver said the road was expected to open to traffic in the coming weeks.

She said it had been "a fantastically large project", involving specialist engineers and some "complicated calculations going on".

"We've had specialists involved and team members who have been here from the very beginning, who are just desperate to see this road open and traffic passing though it."

Work was originally due to finish by April 2025, but that was delayed by a year due to "extremely challenging ground conditions".

Commenting on the delay, Oliver said: "Fundamentally, the way we have constructed this scheme is how we have designed it, but we had to tweak it a little bit.

"Unfortunately, anyone who has driven down here will know how tight the space is, so every time you have a minor delay it does have a knock on impact on the end date of the scheme."

Aside from the road, archaeologists working on the project also uncovered the remains of a victim of "one of Hull's worst dockland disasters", as well as an 18th Century jail, a suspected World War Two bomb site and traces of a medieval settlement.

National Highways said it also worked with developers on a scheme to restore a landmark dockside pub.

Oliver said they had been an "intrinsic" part of the project.

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