FURTHER roadworks are planned for the A338 Spur Road at Blackwater after the present nine month scheme is concluded.

At present Bournemouth council is awaiting a decision from its planning department on a proposed new junction replacing the Holdenhurst footbridge, connecting the road with Castle Lane East via the Wessex Fields business site.

Larry Austin, council service director for environment, said the current work to add an extra southbound lane at Blackwater Junction had been planned with the controversial junction scheme in mind.

"The overall package of works is very much around the stimulation of economic growth around the area of Bournemouth Airport and Wessex Fields," he said.

"The first stage is an additional lane from Blackwater towards Cooper Dean, Wessex Fields would be one stage on.

"A great deal of work has gone into the planning application."

Mike Read, who is heading up the current road widening project for Dorset County Council, said the projects were "very closely co-ordinated".

"If the Wessex Fields scheme goes ahead the third lane will become a lane drop into Wessex Fields, then come out and be the third lane again until it drops at Cooper Dean," he said.

"If the scheme is not successful, and we are confident it is a good scheme which will go through planning, the third lane will continue all the way to Cooper Dean."

Bournemouth council has full funding for phase one of its Wessex Fields plan – creating the slip road off and on the southbound carriageway to pass through the business site and the Royal Bournemouth Hospital.

Although it forms part of the planning application there is no funding in place for phase two, the most controversial part of the scheme, which would see a new road bridge link the slip road to the northbound carriageway.

Additionally, Mr Read said there was "a long term aspiration" to add an extra lane northbound at Blackwater.

"It is not programmed or funded at all at the moment, but these works would enable that at a later date," he said.

The councils say additional lanes at Blackwater are required to cope with a projected 20 per cent increase in traffic over the next 12 years.