The average speed of vehicles travelling along a stretch of the A249 in a year is higher than the limit, a report has revealed.

Interested parties were told about the performance of the road at a meeting on Friday.

Sheppey Route Ltd, the DBFO (design, build, finance and operate) company which built and maintains the crossing organised the meeting, which was held at Carillion Highway Maintenance’s premises in Sittingbourne.

Carillion has been contracted by Sheppey Route Ltd to maintain the road between Stockbury Roundabout and Sheerness Docks.

An annual report into the stretch of road (the period from April 1, 2010 to March 30, 2011) was handed out at the meeting.

It shows that almost 5m vehicles travelled the route in each direction in that period – more than 4,500,000 cars, vans, buses and motorcycles and a further 430,000 HGVs.

The average speed of vehicles using the road over the year was 73.5mph.

There were 30 lane closures including 16 to repair accident damage and seven to enable routine maintenance.

Over the year-long period, there were 40 accidents on the stretch of the A249, none of which were listed as fatal or serious.

Eleven were 'slight’ and 37 resulted in damage to assets.

There were 11 reported incidents – these included five notifications of dead animals, two of oil spills and two of debris.

The Sheppey Crossing was closed five times by Kent Police because of snow and broken down vehicles.

Over the previous winter maintenance period, there were 92 salting runs and 414 tonnes of rock salt were spread.

At the meeting, representatives from organisations including the Highways Agency were also told about the five year management plan for the stretch of road, which runs to March 2016.

The Mayor and Mayoress of Swale, Cllr Ben Stokes and Cllr Sylvia Bennett were also shown round Carillion, where they offering apprenticeship courses in brick-laying, woodwork, painting and decorating and carpentry.

Cllr Stokes said: “We are very, very impressed with the facilities and everything they are doing here.”

Crosswinds can be a big problem

• Sheppey Route Ltd is responsible for the operation and maintenance of the route until 2034 after being awarded the concession by the Highways Agency in 2004
• The road network is more than 22 miles of dual carriageway and more than 12 miles of single carriageway
• As well as the Sheppey Crossing, it includes another 22 structures
• On the stretch of road there are 285 street lights and 605 road signs, of which 110 are illuminated
• The decision whether to close the bridge is taken by Kent Police. Crosswinds from the NW or SE are more of a problem to traffic on the bridge than the more frequent SW winds, which blow along the length of the crossing. An electronic wind speed and direction detection system mounted on the crossing automatically triggers a “level one alert” when winds in excess of 35mph are registered
• If crosswinds of 40mph or south-westerlys of 50mph are experienced, a “level 2 alert” is triggered. At this point, if Kent Police consider persistent high winds are presenting a safety hazard to motorists, they will instruct that the bridge should be closed.

Readers’ questions

Q: Why didn’t you put lights on it?

A: There is no evidence lighting would provide a worthwhile safety benefit. In fact, the new road has delivered higher than expected safety benefits.

Q: Why is there no escape lane for lorries?

A: The bridge has been built to modern safety standards, which do not mandate an escape lane. There have been no incidents to date resulting from lorries being unable to slow down or stop on exiting the bridge.

Q: Why couldn’t they have dug a tunnel – rather than build a bridge – that wouldn’t have to be closed when it’s windy?

A: Tunnels are considerably more expensive to build than bridges. A preliminary evaluation of a tunnel option concluded it would not have provided a strong enough benefit to justify the considerable extra cost.

Q: Why weren’t the sides built a bit higher and why did we not have railings like the Dartford Bridge, or buffers?

A: Again, the bridge has been built to modern safety standards and is performing very well. Any comparison with the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge would not be useful, as they are different types of structure.