Devon County Council has awarded Wills Bros Civil Engineering a £13.8M contract to deliver the Cullompton Town Centre Relief Road in Devon.

The contract is expected to run from 1 June 2026 until 1 January 2028.

The scheme will deliver a new 1.3km relief road linking Station Road and Exeter Road via Meadow Lane, providing a bypass around Cullompton town centre. The road will have a nominal carriageway width of 6.5m and include a 2m-wide footway on its western side.

Wills Bros Civil Engineering was selected following an evaluation process based on quality and price, with tenderers required to submit activity schedules based on their own quantity take-offs. Five tenders were received, with four progressing to the final assessment stage.

The project includes the partial realignment of Meadow Lane and Duke Street, the construction of a new four-arm roundabout connecting the relief road to Station Road and Millennium Way, and five new junctions serving existing roads and adjacent properties.

A significant structures package forms part of the works, including a new single-span road bridge over Spratford Mill Stream. The structure will feature a 15m clear span on a 20-degree skew alignment, PU32 sheet piled abutments and MY7 precast prestressed deck beams with a concrete infill deck.

The scheme also includes the construction of multiple flood relief culverts, including a 6m-wide two-cell box culvert within an existing watercourse and several additional culverts ranging from 1.5m to 4m in width.

Drainage works will comprise a new surface water drainage system, two attenuation basins with capacities of approximately 750m³ and 450m³ respectively, hydrobrake chambers, swales and treatment systems designed to remove hydrocarbons, suspended solids and metals from runoff.

Earthworks operations will involve approximately 16,000m³ of fill material to form roadway embankments, including steep-sided sections.

The relief road will pass through existing sporting facilities, requiring demolition works at the cricket ground, bowls club and Cullompton Rangers Football Club site. Interfaces with separate contracts delivering replacement sports facilities will also be required during construction.

Additional works include around 1,450m of timber fencing, 150m of palisade fencing adjacent to the West Coast Main Line boundary, 100m of acoustic fencing and the installation of 39 new 10m-high lighting columns.

The scheme will also provide approximately 500m of new shared-use paths through adjacent public open space and implement a one-way system on Duke Street between its junctions with Rivermead and Chestnut Avenue.

The relief road will become part of the B3181 and will include new signage, road markings and double yellow lines throughout its length.

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