Work starts to fix crumbling road

Three months of roadworks have started on a coast road in Dorset in a bid to repair the crumbling road surface.

The council said without urgent action the speed limit on the B3157 west of Weymouth would have to be reduced to 20mph next summer.

Local businesses raised concerns over how the work would affect customers.

But highways officers said businesses' suggestions to carry out night works or undertake works without closing parts of the road were "extremely limited".

Dorset County Council's highways service said instead it had switched the sequence of work phases to minimise disruption.

Unsafe surface

In a statement it said: "Examination shows that if the sites are not addressed now, the surface would be unsafe to travel on at speeds above 20mph by May 2009.

"Officers also considered the suggestion of postponing two sites until spring 2009.

"However, the earliest the works could be carried out, without impacting on programmed work affecting other communities in Dorset, would be early April.

"This would mean road closures at the start of the tourism season."

Diversions will be signposted in the area while the work is carried out.