ONE of the busiest roads in Dorset was already being described as worn-out five years ago.

On Monday, a major rebuild of the A338 Spur Road will start and is set to take around nine months. 

Highways officers at Dorset County Council had been saying for years that the road had outlived its design life.

That life began in the 1960s, when plans were laid to build a dual carriageway between Bournemouth and Ringwood, running along the west side of the River Stour.

Much of the new road would be built on the footprint of the Ringwood, Christchurch and Bournemouth railway line that closed in 1935.

While the project would be welcomed by the area’s growing band of drivers, it was a drastic upheaval for the historic Bournemouth village of Holdenhurst.

The road was driven straight through agricultural land owned by the Cooper Dean Estate, which was compensated in 1965 for the fact that its farmland would be suddenly cut in two.

The road opened in 1969, drastically cutting journey times between Bournemouth and Ringwood, and relieving some of the pressure on the village of Hurn.

But while drivers were now tempted to put their foot down as soon as they were beyond the Cooper Dean roundabout, they did not have exclusive use of the road.

Under the terms of the deal with the Cooper Dean Estate, its farmers could still drive their cattle across the road from one field to another.

And in September 1969, the Echo reported how several ladies living at the Elderly Nurses’ Home in Riverside Avenue were also crossing the dual carriageway.

The retired nurses were frustrated at having to walk three-and-a-half miles to get to Holdenhurst Parish Church on the other side of the road. So they had been crossing the dual carriageway, courtesy of a farmer who had left the gates either side of the Spur Road unlocked and turned a blind eye to what they were doing.

The farmer had been told by the local council that he had to stop allowing them across. But unstoppable nurse Mabel Griffin took to climbing over the gates.

Another resident of the nurses’ home, Minnie Scotson, said: “Before the new road was built, it used to take us about 15 minutes to get to the church – a walk of nearly a mile. Now to get there we have to walk over three miles along busy main roads.”

Their concerns were shared by some villagers on the other side of the road, who had been used to walking to Iford to do their shopping.

Holdenhurst’s vicar, the Rev John Hopkins, said the council had not given enough consideration to Holdenhurst village, which had been cut off. “The road is not designed for people to go wandering about on,” he said.

A series of road projects in the 1970s linked the new road with Bournemouth itself, with the Wessex Way dual carriageway driven through the town to a new Richmond Hill interchange and beyond. But the problem of cows on the carriageway remained into the 1980s.

In 1986, councillor Jeanne Curtis reminded a council committee that the farms on the Cooper Dean Estate were allowed to move upwards of 100 cattle across the dual carriageway four times a day – and she asked councillors to consider what would happen if they exercised that right.

Bournemouth East MP David Atkinson joined the campaign for a new bridge that could be used by the cattle.

In December 1987, farmer Peter Seare, fearing a fatal accident if a bridge or an underpass were not built, staged a protest by taking his herd and tractors across the road six times in a day. He had taken over Holdenhurst Farm 20 years previously, when the road was being built across the land.

One thing that helped focus attention on the crossing problem was that a Cooper Dean flyover was under construction and would increase traffic speeds further.

The campaign for a bridge crossing was successful, but other concerns about the Spur Road remained.

There was a row about two dilapidated houses near the Cooper Dean roundabout, which were branded an eyesore, standing vandalised and partly burned.

In the late 1980s, calls intensified for crash barriers between the carriageways – which would not only make the road safer in the event of collisions, but also stop the dangerous U-turns which took place when there was a jam on one carriageway.

The barriers were installed, but Dorset County Council reported in 1996 that the road had one of the worst records for damage to its crash barriers.

By the early 21st century, hold-ups for repair work on the road were becoming more frequent.

In 2009, a £26m rebuild was announced. The money had been released by the now defunct South West Regional Development Agency, but the Department for Transport had to confirm the plan.

Andy Ackerman, head of highways at Dorset County Council, said: “The road has exceeded its design life because there are so many vehicles, up to 60,000 a day, travelling on it. In essence, it’s worn out.”

Preparatory work began in the autumn of 2009, involving clearing shrubs and trees and moving several species of reptiles which were protected by UK and EU law, including smooth snakes and sand lizards.

Those who were not impressed by this work included Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson, who wrote in his column in The Sun that the authorities were “closing a lane of the A338 for seven miles so some worms could be rehoused”.

But a change of government in 2010 brought a review of public spending – and after months of delay, the Spur Road project was scrapped, along with improvements to the A31 at Ringwood.

The county council had already spent £1m on preparatory work and said the road was costing £1m a year in repairs.

Last year, it was confirmed that a £22m rebuild would go ahead.

Work starts on Monday, September 7. We’ll be live-blogging from 6am on Monday to keep you up to date with traffic issues, closure updates and general information. Bookmark bournemouthecho.co.uk/A338 for all our coverage.