The Orwell Bridge will be closed tonight from 8pm for safety reasons as highways engineers carry out routine inspections.

It will reopen at 6am, and these closures will occur all week, and again next week.

As part of the maintenance work, during the summer, workers abseiled down to inspect the bridge piers, which are the vertical support structures. The vertical supports and the internal sections of the bridge have all been inspected.

However, highways workers will now to do the last phase of inspections. The entire underside of the Orwell bridge decks are now being inspected using a large inspection vehicle which allows us to look under the bridge. 

For safety reasons, the bridge will be closed during these inspections.

Road closures

• A14 J58 to J56 full westbound carriageway closure from 8pm to 6am on Monday 20 to Friday 24 November 2023
• A14 J55 to J58 full eastbound carriageway closure from 8pm to 6am on Monday 27 November to Friday 1 December 2023

The A14 westbound lane two over the bridge will close from 8pm to 6am on Monday 27 November to Friday 1 December 2023 (for five nights). Except on Wednesday 29 November when the closures will be delayed until 10pm as Ipswich Town are playing at home that night. This will allow local traffic to disperse before the A14 traffic uses the diversion route.

Diversion route

During the westbound closure, traffic from A14 J58 will be sent up the A12 to the A1214 roundabout, then west along the whole A1214 over the top of Ipswich, down to A14 J55.

The A14 eastbound closure will follow the same route in reverse.