Villagers affected by a change to the A14 upgrade river and railway crossing will be shown the new proposals over the next two weeks.

The Highways Agency has altered the new route’s River Great Ouse and East Coast Mainline crossing between Brampton and the Offords after an Environment Agency assessment showed the proposed embankment design would create a higher flood risk upstream.

Previously the A14 crossing was to be an eight-span viaduct and a railway bridge with an earth embankment between the river and the train line, but now the plans, which form part of the Development Consent Order (DCO), include a nine-span bridge over the Great Ouse, a five-span viaduct over the flood plain and a single-span bridge over the railway with short embankments in between. The two new Ouse viaducts will be 330 metres longer than the original plans.

The updated design and subsequent resident drop-in sessions has meant the DCO, which was due to be submitted by the end of Autumn, will be sent by the end of the year, however this is not anticipated to delay the start of construction, set for late 2016.

A Highways spokesman said: “The extent of the change between what was shown in our pre-application consultation and the current scheme is relatively limited and is relevant only to a small number of people.

“The agency did not therefore consider it necessary to delay the progress of the scheme as a whole but decided that it would provide information to communities and stakeholders during November and December in order to explain the changes and what they mean.”

INFORMATION: The meetings will take place in Buckden on December 11, Brampton on December 15 and Offord D’Arcy and Offord Cluny on December 18.