Notification of Major Gas Works: A2 - High Street, Newington

I am writing to make you aware of the forthcoming upgrade to our gas network A2/ High Street, Newington. Our project involves the essential replacement of old metal gas mains with new plastic pipe to ensure we continue to provide a safe and reliable gas supply to the local area. Our contractor, Forefront Utilities will be undertaking this work on our behalf.

In close consultation with Kent County Council, our project will start on Monday 30th September and last approximately 42 weeks. We will be replacing 4.5km of old gas mains underneath the A2, starting in London Road at its junction with Oak Lane, Hartlip Hill and progressing eastwards to Key Street Roundabout.

To keep everyone safe, we’ll have temporary traffic lights in place around our work area. The traffic lights will move with us as we progress eastwards along the road. We’ll manually control our traffic lights while we’re working to keep traffic flowing along the A2. We’ll operate these lights Monday to Friday between 7:30am and 7:30pm, and between 8:00am and 5:00pm on Saturdays.

To help keep the traffic moving through our temporary traffic lights, we’ll have a signed diversion for HGVs throughout our project. HGVs will be diverted via the M2 to avoid our work completely. Local access for HGV deliveries will be maintained.

While our engineers are working close to Oak Lane and Mill Lane, we’ll need to temporarily close these roads at the junction with London Road. As soon as our work area has progressed safely past the junction, we’ll fully reopen each side road. We will need to close Oak Lane from Monday 30th September for approximately four weeks to ensure everybody’s safety. We’ll then need to close Mill Lane and other side roads as our project progresses. Signed diversion routes will be in place for motorists.

We’re continuing to plan the future phases of our work in consultation with Kent County Council and we’ll provide details of our plans once confirmed.

We understand that people can get frustrated by roadworks. However, the new plastic pipe has a minimum lifespan of 80 years. This means that when the work is complete, local residents and businesses will continue to enjoy the benefits of a safe and reliable gas supply for years to come.

Please share this information with anyone you think may be impacted by our work. A map and updates on our project can be found on our dedicated website page here.

If you have any further questions, please let me know.

Kind regards

Paige Roberts

Stakeholder and Community Manager

SGN Gas

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