A127 Essential Bridge and Highway Maintenance – Southend

The A127 has been identified as a key corridor for growth and further improvements to the A127 are needed at:

• A127/A1015 Kent Elms
• The Bell Junctions
• A127 Essential Bridge and Maintenance improvements

These are an integral part of the access improvements supporting the delivery of Business Park employment in areas adjacent to LSA, and provision of new housing in Rochford.

The importance of the A127

The A127 links London with Basildon and Southend and Rochford. In Basildon, the A127 corridor is home to one of the largest single concentrations of advanced manufacturing companies in the South of England. It makes substantial contributions to the prosperity of the SELEP area and offers considerable growth prospects. London Southend Airport, now with scheduled air services to Europe and hub airports for onward global travel, and planned business parks, will prove attractive to a wide range of global companies and offers capacity for at least 4,200 additional jobs up to 2021 and a further 3,180 post 2021. Southend and Rochford have agreed the Joint Area Action Plan (JAAP) to unlock these opportunities and the Council has appointed Henry Boot as their development partner.

Enabling growth

To enable growth in Thames Gateway South Essex the A127 requires substantial improvement and a higher level of maintenance. The ‘A127 Corridor for Growth Economic Plan’, sets out the rationale and supporting evidence in detail. The A127 Corridor for Growth package is a partnership project between Essex County Council and Southend-on-Sea Borough Council. The Southend element includes A127 Kent Elms and A127 The Bell junction improvements, and A127 Essential Bridge and Highway Maintenance package.

Award of additional LGF funding

The LGF COVID-19 response fund was established to support those existing LGF projects which were experiencing a funding gap due to cost increases or loss of local funding sources as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. A new LGF project pipeline, consisting of existing LGF projects, was agreed by the Strategic Board in December 2020 and will be used as the basis for awarding all currently unallocated LGF funding.

This project was included on the new LGF project pipeline and the award of an additional £0.207m LGF was approved by Accountability Board on 12th February 2021.

Following confirmation from Southend on Sea City Council that the project had completed and that the additional LGF awarded to the project in February 2021, to support the delivery of the project, was no longer required. The Board were asked to agree the removal of the £0.207m LGF funding to be distributed to the prioritised pipeline. This was approved by Accountability Board on 27 May 2022.

£579m of investment to East Sussex, Essex, Kent, Medway, Southend and Thurrock

In total the SELEP Growth Deal with Government has brought £579m of investment to East Sussex, Essex, Kent, Medway, Southend and Thurrock. Over the lifetime of the Growth Deal (2015-2021) we aim to deliver 78,000 jobs and 29,000 homes across the SELEP area, with the Deal set to attract a further £960m of investment into the South East over the six year period.

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