Topsham Road closed every night this week

It will force motorists into a six mile diversion.

The main road between Exeter and Topsham will be closed EVERY night this week – and force motorists into a six mile diversion.

Topsham Road in Countess Wear will be closed from the junction with Glasshouse Lane to the junction of Plants Galore from 7pm until 7am, until Friday, August 2.

And despite just 0.4 miles of the road being closed, the diversion route listed last for over six miles.

Vehicles wishing to travel from Exeter to Topsham will instead be signposted back to the Countess Wear roundabout, up Rydon Lane, along the A379, the A376 towards Exmouth, and then via Topsham Road at the junction of the George and Dragon pub.

The official diversion is 6.4 miles long and will take motorists 15 minutes to make the journey that should take just over one minute.

The traffic order states that the restriction is considered necessary to enable patching works to take place by Devon County Council’s highways contractor Skanska on the road.

When speaking at last week’s Devon County Council meeting, Cllr Stuart Hughes, the Cabinet Member for Highways Management, had been asked to report on the process for diversion routes when a road had to be closed.

He told the meeting that any diversion route used had to be of a standard equal to or exceeding the road being closed, and only in exceptional circumstances was this not applied.

Cllr Hughes said that while this can lead to some long diversion routes but, they are advisory and local traffic may wish to use alternative routes if they are aware of them.

But he added that the council is not be held responsible for any unreasonable actions of the motoring public and evidence of non-adherence to traffic signs, signals, inconsiderate driving, and use of pavements in the actions that members of the public take in the choices that they make.