The A329(M) is a

motorway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms i ...

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It is 4 miles (6.4 km) long and runs from the west of

Bracknell Bracknell () is a large town and civil parish in Berkshire, England, the westernmost area within the Greater London Built-up Area, Greater London Urban Area and the administrative centre of the Bracknell Forest, Borough of Bracknell Forest. It l ...

to the north west of

Winnersh Winnersh is a large suburban village and civil parish in the borough of Wokingham in Berkshire, England. The village is located around northwest of Wokingham town centre and around southeast of central Reading. It is roughly bounded by the ...

. It is one of a small number of parts of the motorway system in England that are managed by the local highway authority, in this case

Wokingham Borough Council Wokingham Borough Council is the local authority of the Borough of Wokingham in Berkshire, England. It is a unitary authority A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or perform ...

, rather than

National Highways National Highways, formerly the Highways Agency and later Highways England, is a State-owned enterprise, government-owned company charged with operating, maintaining and improving Roads in England, motorways and major A roads in England. It al ...

Route

From south to north, the route starts to the north of

and runs directly from the A329. It passes east of

Wokingham Wokingham is a market town in Berkshire, England, west of London, southeast of Reading, north of Camberley and west of Bracknell. History Wokingham means 'Wocca's people's home'. Wocca was apparently a Saxon chieftain who may als ...

countryside In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, ...

. It then crosses the M4, continues north and meets the A3290 at

Winnersh Triangle Winnersh is a large suburban village and civil parish in the borough of Wokingham in Berkshire, England. The village is located around northwest of Wokingham town centre and around southeast of central Reading. It is roughly bounded by the ...

west of which see the status-downgraded A3290 road, to the junction with the A4. It is managed locally, by

, rather than by

Death of construction workers

The formwork over its new

River Loddon The River Loddon is a tributary of the River Thames in southern England. It rises at Basingstoke in Hampshire and flows northwards for to meet the Thames at Wargrave in Berkshire. Together, the Loddon and its tributaries drain an area of . T ...

bridge should have supported the concrete while being poured but collapsed. Three men died and ten were injured in the wreckage. The Bragg report considered why this happened and made recommendations as to how formwork should be designed and tested, to make bridge construction safer. Around 500 tons of concrete, with the steelwork and planking that should have supported it, dropped into the river. It was the eighth span of a total of 33 which make up the viaduct.

History

The first section of the road opened in 1973, and went from the

junction to a temporary terminus at the

A321 The Airbus A321 is a member of the Airbus A320 family of short to medium range, narrow-body, commercial passenger twin engine jet airliners; it carries 185 to 236 passengers. It has a stretched fuselage which was the first derivative of the ba ...

. A further section to the North/West of Winnersh — due to open at the same time — took the road up to the junction with the A4 to the east of Reading, running to the north of the railway line and dividing the

Earley Earley is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Wokingham, Berkshire, England. Along with the neighbouring town of Woodley, the Office for National Statistics places Earley within the Reading/Wokingham Urban Area; for the purposes of local ...

area of Reading almost in two. However the opening of this section was delayed due to the collapse of the

Loddon Viaduct Loddon may refer to: *Loddon, Norfolk in England, UK *Shire of Loddon in Victoria, Australia (since 1995) **Bridgewater On Loddon, Victoria in Australia *River Loddon, flows into the River Thames near Reading *Loddon River, flows north from south of ...

on 24 October 1972, which killed three people and injured ten others. This section subsequently opened in 1974. The third and final section to be completed was the southern section of the motorway which was built to a standard dual two lane motorway specification (D2), and was opened in 1975. This extended the road to the A329/ B3408 junction at Amen Corner roundabout. The section of Berkshire Way (and the construction of the flyover) came some years later, allowing traffic to flow from Reading and the M4 past the official end of the motorway onto the Southern and Western industrial areas of Bracknell. The large

free-flow interchange A free-flow interchange is an interchange in which all roads are grade-separated, and where movement from one road to another does not require the driver to stop for traffic (for example, the interchange may not include traffic lights or unsign ...

between the A329(M) and the M4 was constructed as part of plans for an

M31 motorway The M31 was planned as a Reading to M3 motorway which was dubbed the 'M3 – M4 link motorway'. It would have provided a direct high-speed route between the two motorways. The motorway was planned at the same time as the largely unrealised Lo ...

which was originally planned to extend down to the M3 (and possibly beyond) in the south. In the early nineties the section of the A329(M) that met the A4 east of Reading was downgraded to an

A road A roads may be *motorways or freeways, usually where the local word for motorway begins with A (for example, ''Autobahn'' in German; ''Autostrada'' in Italian). * main roads or highways, in a system where roads are graded A, B and sometimes lower c ...

to enable the hard shoulder to be used by a park-and-ride bus service. It was then renamed the A3290. The Park and Ride bus service car park is subject to flooding and this causes frequent closures of the service. A feature of the A329(M) is its wide grass central reservation north of the M4. The cross-section of the motorway was built in this way to support future widening to dual-three lane standard, which was never introduced: the later southern section to Amen Corner lacks this provision. Because of this wide central reservation, the A329 (M) was formerly one of the only motorways in the United Kingdom to have no central barriers on some stretches. However, as of 2010, almost the entire length of the road has had a central reservation barrier installed, possibly due to accidents over recent years. In 2006, on an area to the south of the A329(M) just beyond the actual designated motorway section, construction began on a new housing development—

Jennett's Park Jennett's Park is a suburb of Bracknell in the English county of Berkshire. It is a recent development with the first residents moving there in 2007. It is in Great Hollands North ward of Bracknell Forest Council. The development lies approximat ...

. A new roundabout retaining an eastbound through lane was built on the A329 to provide access to this development. It was finished in early 2011. In 2015 the A329(M) was reduced to a single lane each way through Junction 10 by Highways England.

Junctions

References

External links