A12 road (England)

The A12 road is also a road in Belgium: Brussels-Boom-Antwerp

The A12 is a major road in England, a trunk road for most of its length, running from London to Great Yarmouth in Norfolk. The road forms part of the unsigned Euroroute E30. Unlike most A roads, the A12 (together with the A14 and the A55) has junction numbers as if it were a motorway. In 2007 it was named as Britain's worst road in a survey by Cornhill Insurance.

Route

Starting just north of the Blackwall Tunnel where it connects end on to the A102, it heads north through Bow, Old Ford and Hackney Wick, then north east through Leyton, Leytonstone, Wanstead, Redbridge, Gants Hill and Romford, then into Essex, passing Brentwood, Chelmsford and Colchester. In Suffolk, it passes Ipswich , Woodbridge and Saxmundham, then follows the coast through Lowestoft before entering Norfolk passing through Gorleston and ending at Great Yarmouth.

London

A12 Road
Northbound exits	Junction	Southbound exits
Essex
M25, Brentwood A1023	11 (M25 J28 - Brook Street)	M25, Brentwood A1023
Brentwood A1023, Mountnessing B1002	12 (Mountnessing Marylands)	Brentwood A1023, Mountnessing B1002
No Exit	13 (Trueloves)	Ingatestone B1002
Margaretting	14 (Furze Hill)	No Exit
Chelmsford A414, Margaretting B1002	15 (Webb’s Farm)	Chelmsford A414, Margaretting B1002
B1007	16 (Stock Road)	B1007
A130, Chelmsford A1114	17 (Howe Green)	A130, Chelmsford A1114
A414	18 (Sandon)	A414
No Exit	19 (Boreham)	Chelmsford A138
Hatfield Peverel	20a (Hatfield Peveral South)	No Exit
No Exit	20b (Hatfield Peveral North)	Hatfield Peverel
Witham B1389	21 (Lynfield Motors)	No Exit
No Exit	22 (Coleman's)	Witham B1389
Kelvedon B1024	23 (Kelvedon South)	No Exit
No Exit	24 (Kelvedon North)	Kelvedon B1024
Braintree, Stansted A120, B1408	25 (Marks Tey)	Braintree, Stansted A120, B1408
A1124	26 (Eight Ash Green)	A1124
Colchester A133	27 (Spring Lane)	No Exit
Harwich, Clacton A120, Colchester A1232	29 (Ardleigh Crown)	Harwich, Clacton A120, Colchester A1232
Suffolk
B1029	30 (Park Lane Birchwood)	B1029
East Bergholt	31	East Bergholt
Capel St. Mary	32a (Capel St. Mary South)	Capel St. Mary
C475 London Road	32b (Bentley Longwood)	C475 London Road
London, Ipswich A14, A1214	33 (A14 J55 - Copdock Mill)	End of concurrency with A14

The section from the Lea Interchange to Leytonstone, which is all dual carriageway, was built in the 1990s following the removal of protestors. The old section as far as Wanstead was rebuilt as a dual carriageway. Prior to that, the A12 started at the Green Man Roundabout at Leytonstone, and was single carriageway west of Wanstead tube station. It now has an underpass at that roundabout, which again is a junction with the old A11. South of the Lea Interchange the road was built in the late 1960s as the East Cross Route and was previously the A102 and A102(M). This section has a triple-layer interchange with the A11 at Bow Road and connects to the A13 at the southern end.

East of Wanstead, the A12 runs roughly due east. It is known as Eastern Avenue, then Eastern Avenue West and Eastern Avenue East, built in the 1920s as a bypass for the section of the Roman road from Colchester to London running through Ilford and Romford (today's A118). The eastern end of the Eastern Avenue is Gallows Corner in the London Borough of Havering, just east of Romford. The junction also marks the start-point of the A127 Southend Arterial Road, also 1920s vintage. At the roundabout, an extemporised two-lane flyover still provides priority for A12 eastbound to A127 traffic (and vice versa). However, the A12 now veers roughly north-eastward, because it starts to follow the course of the Roman road; the Romans started building this road from Colchester, their original capital for the province. However, the 2.5 mile (4 km) stretch from Gallows Corner to the junction with the M25 motorway, called Colchester Road, is still perfectly straight. The M25 junction is number 28; it also marks where the A12 crosses the boundary from London to Essex.

Essex

Originally, the A12 followed the route of the Roman road closely and so was fairly straight, but there are now several town bypasses, so the road through Essex now has several meanders. The A12 formerly went through Brentwood, Mountnessing, Ingatestone, Margaretting, Chelmsford, Boreham, Hatfield Peverel, Witham, Kelvedon, Copford, Stanway and Colchester, but these are all now bypassed, and the A12 is close to motorway standard for its whole length in Essex.

It is this stretch of the A12, particularly between Chelmsford and Colchester, which has led to the poor reputation for surface quality of the A12. This is mainly for its bumpy or potholed surface, mostly due to worn concrete surfaces, especially on the Kelvedon bypass, also between Hatfield Peverel and Witham, and between Copford and Stanway. These bypasses, plus the Chelmsford bypass in its entirety, have still not been replaced with tarmaced roads.

Colchester

Built in 1982, the A12 Colchester bypass provides an uninterrupted dual carriageway where the national speed limit (70 mph / 113 km/h) applies.

Before 1982, the A12 took a route much closer to Colchester itself, and although still a bypass it consisted of urban single carriageways with roundabouts and pedestrian crossings. The old bypass is, of course, still in existence – the western half is now part of the A1124 and the eastern half part of the A133.

Suffolk

The Suffolk stretch of the A12 starts with the Capel St Mary by-pass. Originally the route from the Northern end of this bypass ran through the villages of Washbrook and Copdock and into Ipswich. When Ipswich's Southern by-pass was built in the early 1980s, the route picked up from the northern Capel St Mary junction (now numbered 32b), to pass to the West of the original line -- this allowed the relevant ground works and interchanges to be completed with minimal traffic disruption. The old dual carriageway through Washbrook and Copdock is blocked off at White's Corner and was renumbered to be the C475. A footpath still exists which enables passage underneath the A14.

Ipswich

The old route through Ipswich was renumbered as the A1214 following construction of the Ipswich Southern By-pass. The old route is more locally known by the road names, notably "London Road" to the Town Centre and Woodbridge Road out the other side. The Ipswich Southern By-pass allows the A12 to overlap the A14 to Seven Hills Interchange, ironically 7 miles from the Copdock junction, where the A12 reappears and heads North with at-grade roundabout junctions past BT Adastral Park at Martlesham and around the Woodbridge bypass.

For most of its remaining length through Suffolk the A12 is a single carriageway road and in many places its speed limit is less than the national limit, for example as it passes through towns and villages. During 2003/2004 some of these speed restrictions were further reduced from 40mph to 30mph. There are, though, a few stretches of dual carriageway between the Woodbridge bypass and Lowestoft (at Wickham Market, Saxmundham, Wangford and Kessingland).This section of the A12 was detrunked in 2001 as part of the Highways Agency's streamlining of its Trunk Road Network. Control was therefore passed to the local authorities.

Just south of Blythburgh, the old milestone shows is it 100 miles to London.

Lowestoft

The A12 runs through Lowestoft for about 5 miles (8 km) on urban 30 mph (48 km/h) limited roads, however as of June 2006 the A12 now follows the course of the new single carriageway 40 mph Southern Relief Road that joins the original A12 at Lowestoft bascule bridge. A further impediment is the harbour bridge, which has three lanes, the centre lane operating as a one-way addition to whichever direction of flow is deemed greater according to time of day.

An alternative route avoiding Lowestoft is available through Oulton Broad (the town of), but again via urban roads and a bridge (A1117).

The presence of these bridge choke points can cause serious disruption to north-south trunk traffic, especially when local traffic is added during rush hours.

An adequate bypass for Lowestoft would need to be well to the west, even to the west of Oulton Broad (the body of water), and its route would have to consider the great areas of marshland in that area. For that reason an often discussed compromise is a third bridge, crossing Lake Lothing, linking the sections of urban spine-road that run approximately along the western edge of Lowestoft.

Norfolk

Gorleston

From a point just south west of the mouth of the River Yare, northwards to the point where it crosses the River Yare in Great Yarmouth, the A12 now follows the route originally used by the railway line from Lowestoft to its terminus at Haven Bridge where Great Yarmouth's Southtown Station used to be.

Improvements underway

Improvements are being made to the junction between the A12 and the M25 to increase slip-road capacity in particular for clockwise M25 traffic turning north onto the A12 and to ease congestion on the Brook Street Roundabout (Currently serving M25,A12 and local Brentwood traffic as the A1023). These works are scheduled to be completed in Spring 2008.

The bascule bridge in Lowestoft, built in 1972, is undergoing refurbishment, with works expected to be completed in April 2008. Long closures to traffic have angered local businesses who feel they are losing out on trade.

In February 2008, Essex County Council announced it would be holding the first public inquiry carried into a major trunk route in Britain, carried out by a local authority. The inquiry will be headed by Sir David Rowlands, KCB, a former Permanent Secretary at the Department for Transport. The inquiry will begin taking submissions in April and it is intended by Essex County Council that its findings will be used to press for improvements to the A12.

Proposed improvements

Proposals are in place to improve the A120 between Braintree and the junction with the A12. As of February 2008 the East of England Regional Assembly prioritised the scheme for start of works in the 2011/12 – 2015/16 period, with completion post 2016.

External links

• Society for All British Road Enthusiasts entry for the A12
• Henham Park, 100 miles to London — Milestone Web