Bromsgrove Roadworks This Week: A38 Oakalls Night Closures

This is our weekly check of every live and proposed closure in the district.

The A38 shuts overnight between the Oakalls and Slideslow roundabouts on weeknights from Monday 5 to Friday 9 October. The county council’s BREP works table lists it as planned, which means the traffic management permit has been granted. The work prepares the road for traffic to switch onto the new northbound carriageway.

That is the first of three sets of A38 night closures that now run back to back:

• 5 to 9 October: A38 north of Oakalls, Oakalls roundabout to Slideslow roundabout, weeknight closures
• 9 to 12 October: A38 south of Oakalls, New Road junction to Oakalls roundabout, weekend night closures
• 12 to 16 October: A38 at Stoke Road Bridge, between the Austin Road and Sherwood Road roundabout and Warwick Avenue, 20:00 to 06:00 each night, both directions

The Stoke Road Bridge nights are new this week. The county published them on its BREP page with a signed diversion via New Road and the Oakalls roundabout, and it has held 19 to 24 October in reserve as contingency nights.

Closer to home, four side roads shut this week. All four orders have been made by the county, not just proposed:

• Barnsley Road, Bromsgrove, Birmingham Road to Walton Road: two days from Monday 5 October
• Mearse Lane, Barnt Green, Brookhouse Road to Plymouth Road: three days from 5 October
• Brockhill Lane, Tardebigge: two days from Tuesday 6 October
• Church Road and Chadcote Way, Catshill: three days from Wednesday 7 October

Fox Lane, Rock Hill to Breakback Road, had a two-day order from Saturday 3 October, so today is its second day.

Everything below comes from the statutory closure orders, the National Highways closure report, the county council’s own live highways alerts feed and the two highway authorities’ programmes. Nothing is carried over on trust, and where we could not reach a source today we say so. It is current on Sunday 4 October 2026.

Closed right now

The oldest closure in Bromsgrove is not a roadworks job at all. A side road off The Strand has been shut since 13:30 on 25 January 2026 because a building beside it is collapsing. It is still logged on the county council’s own live emergency closures feed, which we checked again on 4 October, as “The Strand, Side road bromsgrove closed due to collapsing building”. That is more than eight months, and no end date is published.

Old Birmingham Road is the one to plan around. It is a through route, not a side street, and it is closed 24 hours a day rather than overnight. The signed diversion is long: A38 Lickey End roundabout, A38 Birmingham Road, A38 Halesowen Road, Lydiate Ash roundabout, A38 Birmingham Road into Birmingham, then Lickey Road and Rose Hill to rejoin. Staple Flat is closed for 60 metres from its junction with Old Birmingham Road, and its own diversion runs through Linehouse Lane. The order was made for a maximum of 18 months; the anticipated duration is 105 days from 21 July, which runs to about 3 November.

The A38 footway closure is a footway, not the carriageway. Pedestrians heading north from Slideslow roundabout towards Heart of Worcestershire College are sent the long way round via Regents Park Road, Stratford Road, Blackwood Road and the unnamed footpath alongside the college. Its 55 days from 11 August run to about 5 October, so it is in its last days on the order. No reopening notice has been published for it.

Chequers Lane is in Wychbold, in Wychavon, about five miles south of Bromsgrove. Its diversion uses the A38 Worcester Road.

Last week’s short jobs have run their course:

• the Buntsford Drive roundabout lights, booked for 28 to 30 September
• Billesley Lane at Portway, one day from 29 September
• the three-day A435 closure at Beoley, which ended on 1 October
• one night of CCTV drainage work on the A38 Birmingham Road by Grosvenor Gardens, 20:00 to 05:00 on Friday 2 October, under two-way lights (BREP scheme F)
• Dudley’s southbound ban on Grange Hill in Halesowen, ordered to 30 September

This week: the first October closures

The county’s notice of 30 September made the orders for the five side roads listed at the top. The detail that matters for each:

• Fox Lane (Severn Trent): the signed diversion is the long way round, via Rock Hill, Worcester Road, Hanover Street, the A448 Kidderminster Road and Whitford Road.
• Barnsley Road (Severn Trent, a carriageway defect): a short loop via Walton Road and Birmingham Road.
• Mearse Lane (county council, a dropped kerb): via Brookhouse Road, Shepley Road, Twatling Road and Plymouth Road. It shuts again for a day on 13 October.
• Brockhill Lane (Severn Trent): via Butlers Hill Lane, Brockhill Drive and Hewell Lane.
• Church Road, Catshill (Severn Trent), from Wildmoor Lane to Marsh Way: via Wildmoor Lane, Meadow Road and Stourbridge Road. The first 20 metres of Chadcote Way also shuts, with a diversion via Springs Avenue.

The same notice made the one-day closure of the A448 Kidderminster Road layby at Dodford on 5 October, for footway work. The road itself stays open.

One more made order turned up in the county’s notice of 1 October, printed in The Shuttle. Broome Lane shuts for one day on Thursday 8 October, from the A450 Worcester Road to Redhall Farm Road, for telegraph pole replacement by MJ Quinn. The order files it under Stourbridge, but this is the lane through Broome, in the Bromsgrove district. The signed diversion runs via the A450 Worcester Road and Thicknall Lane.

What is advertised for the rest of October

Five county notices, of 9, 16, 23, 24 and 30 September, have put a run of closures into October and early November. The ones from 12 October onwards are still proposed orders, not decisions.

Five are worth flagging now.

Worcester Road and Hanover Street shut for nine days from Saturday 24 October. This is the new one, from the county’s notice of 30 September, and it is the only proposed closure on the list that runs into the town centre. It covers the B4091 Worcester Road from the Charford Road junction to Hanover Street, and Hanover Street from there to the A448 St John Street. The work is footway reconstruction. The signed diversion is long:

• B4091 Rock Hill and Hanbury Road
• the A38 Redditch Road and the Bromsgrove Eastern Bypass
• the A448 Stratford Road, The Strand, Market Street and St John Street

Ednall Lane, by the town centre, has no fixed date, and its diversion runs along the road above. The county will close Ednall Lane for one day between 20 October and 2 November for resurfacing. Its signed diversion goes via Station Street, Worcester Road, Hanover Street, Market Street, Market Place, the High Street and New Road. If the county picks a day inside the Worcester Road closure, that signed route would itself be shut. Neither notice addresses the overlap.

Romsley gets a seven-week gas main job. Cadent’s closure of Dark Lane, Hillcrest Road and Poplar Lane is proposed for 54 days, 24 hours a day, in three phases:

• Dark Lane, St Kenelms Road to Hillcrest Road: 26 October to 18 December
• Hillcrest Road, 167 metres north east from Dark Lane: 16 November to 4 December
• Poplar Lane and Dark Lane, Hillcrest Road to the B4551 Bromsgrove Road: 30 November to 11 December

Monday 19 October is a pole-replacement day across the district. Five separate one-day closures are booked for it, from School Lane in Hagley to Rowney Green Lane near Alvechurch. Walton Pool Lane at Clent has the longest signed diversion, via the A491, Gorse Green Lane, Shutt Mill Lane and St Kenelms Pass.

The Alvechurch closure is a different Old Birmingham Road. It is the short stretch by the Roberts Corner roundabout, not the B4096 at Marlbrook that has been shut since July. It runs for 12 days, and the notice warns there is no access for emergency services. The diversion is short: Roberts Corner roundabout, the B4120 Redditch Road and Jays Crescent.

A proposed order is an intention, not a decision. The county can move or drop those dates.

The 23 September notice also gives formal notice of a new toucan crossing on the B4091 Stourbridge Road, 263 metres north of the Barnsley Hall Road roundabout, for pedestrians and cyclists. The county says the plan can be inspected or requested by email until 14 October 2026.

The motorways: M5 junction 1 to 3 nights continue

The National Highways closure report for 2 to 8 October has no closures on the M5 between junction 4a and junction 5, and none on the M42 links at junction 4a. The M42 southbound link to the M5 southbound, shut overnight on Saturday 3 October, is not booked again this week.

The work that carries on is further north. The M5 between junction 1 at West Bromwich and junction 3 at Halesowen shuts overnight on every remaining night of the report, in alternating directions:

On the northbound nights the dedicated left turn from the A456 eastbound onto the junction 3 northbound entry slip also shuts. That stretch is in Sandwell and Dudley, about seven miles north of junction 4. National Highways’ notice of 10 September gave the work as sign replacement, for about eight days, with a signed diversion via the A4252, A457, A4123 and A456.

The M5 junction 4a to M42 junction 3 drainage scheme is a standing order made on 7 August for overnight closures, 21:00 to 06:00, for about six months from 10 August. National Highways files its closures as “maintenance works” and does not link them to that order by name. The order’s own signed diversion, when the main carriageway closes, runs via the A38, the A448, the A441, the A4023 and the A435.

The A38 scheme behind most of it

The A38 Bromsgrove Route Enhancement Programme, or BREP, is a £49.7 million rebuild of the road that carries traffic round the town. Phase 3 has been in delivery since 2025.

There are now three published finish dates and none of them is this year. The council’s frequently asked questions said “end of 2026” when we checked on 3 September; on 10 September the same page reads “the end of March 2027”. The programme page the council updated in July 2026 says some activities will continue into spring 2027. And in a letter of 4 September the Minister for Roads gave the majority of the programme as early 2027, with Oakalls Roundabout finishing in summer 2027. We have set the three side by side: what the Minister told Bromsgrove’s MP.

BREP phase 3 covers the A38 between junction 4 of the M5 in the north and the A38 junction with the B4094 in the south. It is junction capacity work, localised widening, new crossings, bus priority and an active travel route between the railway station and the town centre. Colas is the main contractor, working with Griffiths and Journeo Passenger Systems.

Roughly £1 in every £10 of the programme is developer money, which is the practical link between the roadworks and the housing debate: the junctions are being enlarged partly because more homes are coming, and some of the homes are paying for it.

The council is candid about why the dates have moved. Its July update blames “further diversion works required of gas, water and electricity services due to inaccurate utility location records”, and says the timing of those sits with the utility companies rather than with the highway contractor. The next programme update is promised for October 2026. Our separate report sets out what the county says about penalties for the delay.

What BREP is advertising next

The county has added two more dated notices to the BREP news page since Thursday.

• Stratford Road footway (scheme E): the resurfacing of the northern footway at Stratford Road is complete. Only the final signage is left, and the county expects the footway to reopen by 9 October. It chose to finish the signs first rather than reopen and close it again.
• A38 Birmingham Road drainage (scheme F): one night of CCTV inspection and drainage clearance by Grosvenor Gardens on Friday 2 October, under two-way lights. That has now passed.

The Stoke Road Bridge notice for scheme C is unchanged:

• the A38 is closed in both directions; the notice describes the closed section as between the A38/Charford Road junction and the Sherwood Road junction, and its diversion map as between the Austin Road and Sherwood Road roundabout and Warwick Avenue
• 20:00 to 06:00 on the nights starting Monday 12, Tuesday 13, Wednesday 14, Thursday 15 and Friday 16 October
• 19 to 24 October are held as contingency nights, used only if needed
• traffic between Stoke Road and the A38 is signed via New Road and the Oakalls roundabout
• pedestrians get a signed diversion from the closure point to the A38 crossing

The council warns that “some noise is unfortunately unavoidable”, particularly during excavation, and says it may not need every planned night.

The table still reads Stoke Road as “proposed, to be confirmed” for 12 to 17 October, while the dated notice above it gives firm nights for the same week. The notice is the newer and more specific of the two.

Stoke Road has daytime lights and night closures in the same fortnight. The off-peak two-way lights between Charford Road and the Sherwood Road roundabout run from 5 to 25 October, so they overlap every one of the bridge nights.

The New Road row is the link west of the A38, which is the side the station is on. Its weeknight closures of 2 to 7 November fall after the Stoke Road Bridge nights, so the bridge diversion via New Road is not affected.

Nothing on the A448 is booked before December. The table runs to 20 December.

The pattern to expect through the autumn is the one the council has used all year: night closures between 20:00 and 06:00, weekend closures from Friday evening to Monday morning, and signed A-road diversions rather than routes through residential streets.

Sanders Park car park works

Separately from the A38, Bromsgrove District Council is extending the overflow car park at Sanders Park. Work started on Monday 17 August 2026, and the council’s page for the scheme still says, when we checked on 4 October, that it “will be completed around early October 2026”. No completion has been announced.

The finished job should add 23 standard bays and 6 disabled bays to the current provision, along with new drainage, kerbs, footpaths and resurfacing. The contractor is Macdonald Surfacing, working 08:00 to 17:00 on weekdays only, with no evening or weekend working. Expect construction traffic, dust and a temporary one-way arrangement inside the car park. The park itself stays open.

Parking: Stourbridge Road car park has closed

Bromsgrove District Council’s public car parks all give the first 30 minutes free, as long as you take a ticket from the machine.

Stourbridge Road car park closed permanently on 24 September, taking 71 spaces, five of them accessible. The council’s news post of 18 September gave that date, a day earlier than the 25 September in its parking order papers. The council published its notice of making on 25 September: the new Off-Street Parking Places Order came into effect that day, and anyone wanting to challenge it in the High Court has six weeks from that date. We have set out the car parks left, their prices and where season tickets still work.

Season tickets are now valid at four car parks only:

• School Drive
• Parkside
• North Bromsgrove
• New Road

The tariffs at the remaining car parks are unchanged by the new order.

Two other things stand out. Recreation Road South is nearly twice the price of the others for a long stay, £11 against £6, despite being the biggest car park in the town. And St John Street and Windsor Street are the two 3-hour car parks, priced higher per hour precisely because they are meant to turn over. Blue Badge holders park free everywhere, though in the two 3-hour car parks that free parking is itself capped at three hours.

Bromsgrove has no park and ride site. The station car park is the nearest thing to one: 350 spaces on New Road at £3 a day, run by Excel Parking rather than the council, and covered on our Bromsgrove train times page.

The routes that carry the town

• The A38 is the spine. It runs from junction 4 of the M5 at Bromsgrove’s northern edge, past Catshill and along the eastern side of the town through the Slideslow, Oakalls, Buntsford Drive and Sherwood Road junctions, and on south towards Droitwich. Almost every BREP closure is on it or on a road feeding it.
• The M5 at junction 4 is the town’s main motorway access. The M42 joins the M5 immediately north of it at junction 4a, which is why so much cross-region traffic funnels past Bromsgrove rather than round it, and why the junction 4a drainage works matter here.
• The A448 links Bromsgrove east to Redditch and west to Kidderminster. The Bromsgrove Highway stretch between the Oakalls roundabout and the Foxlydiate junction has had repeated overnight closures under BREP scheme E.
• The A491 runs north west towards Hagley and Stourbridge, the way most of the district’s western villages reach the town.
• Local roads to watch during closures: Stoke Road, Sherwood Road, New Road, Regents Park Road, Churchfields and Buntsford Drive have all carried closures or multi-way lights this year.

What it means for you

• If you drive the A38 through Bromsgrove at night, expect it shut between Oakalls and Slideslow on weeknights from 5 to 9 October, south of Oakalls on the weekend nights of 9 to 12 October, and at Stoke Road Bridge from 20:00 to 06:00 on 12 to 16 October.
• If you live off Fox Lane, Barnsley Road, Mearse Lane, Brockhill Lane or Church Road in Catshill, your road has a made closure order in the first week of October.
• If you use Worcester Road or Hanover Street into the town centre, a nine-day closure is proposed from 24 October.
• If you live in Romsley near Dark Lane, Hillcrest Road or Poplar Lane, Cadent’s gas main job is proposed to run in phases from 26 October to 18 December.
• If Old Birmingham Road is your route into Marlbrook or Lickey End, assume it is closed until about 3 November and build the A38 diversion into your journey time.
• The M5 and M42 at junction 4a have no closures booked in the National Highways report to Thursday 8 October.
• If you drive north to West Bromwich, the M5 between junctions 1 and 3 shuts every night to Thursday 8 October, in alternating directions.
• If you live near Broome, Broome Lane shuts for one day on Thursday 8 October.
• If you walk the Stratford Road footway, the county expects it to reopen by 9 October.
• If you drive the district’s lanes, Monday 19 October has five one-day closures for pole replacements.
• If you used to park at Stourbridge Road, it closed on 24 September. Season tickets now work at four car parks.
• Anything above marked proposed can move. Check the county’s notice before you build a journey around it.

Frequently asked questions

Is the M5 closed at Bromsgrove this week?

Not between junction 4a and junction 5. The National Highways closure report for 2 to 8 October lists no closures on that stretch, and none on the M42 links at junction 4a. Further north, the M5 between junction 1 and junction 3 has overnight closures every night to Thursday 8 October, alternating northbound and southbound.

How long is Old Birmingham Road at Marlbrook closed for?

The closure order gives an anticipated duration of 105 days from 21 July 2026, which runs to about 3 November. Cadent is replacing a gas main. The order itself allows up to 18 months if the work overruns.

When are the next A38 night closures in Bromsgrove?

The county council’s BREP page gives 5 to 9 October on the A38 north of the Oakalls roundabout, on weeknights, then weekend nights from 9 to 12 October south of it. The A38 at Stoke Road Bridge then closes in both directions from 20:00 to 06:00 on the nights of 12 to 16 October, with 19 to 24 October held as contingency nights. Traffic between Stoke Road and the A38 is diverted via New Road. The A448 Stratford Road closures are now listed for 7 to 12 December.

When will the Bromsgrove A38 roadworks finish?

The newest answer is the Minister for Roads’, in a letter of 4 September 2026: the majority of the programme in early 2027, and Oakalls Roundabout in summer 2027. The council’s own FAQ page gives the end of March 2027, and its phase 3 page says some activities continue into spring 2027. The council has promised its next programme update in October 2026.

Why is the A38 work taking so long?

The council’s stated reason is utility diversions. Gas, water and electricity apparatus has repeatedly turned up in places the records did not show, which stops work while the utility companies deal with it. In a letter to the town’s MP on 14 August the cabinet member for highways named Cadent gas apparatus as the principal factor.

How much is the A38 Bromsgrove scheme costing?

£49,698,512 in total. The Department for Transport is putting in £43,164,981, developers £5,216,238 through section 106 agreements, and the Worcestershire Local Enterprise Partnership £1,317,293. By the end of July 2026, £34,666,977 had been spent.

Where can I park free in Bromsgrove?

The first 30 minutes is free in every public council car park if you take a ticket. Aston Fields is free for up to three hours, and the Alvechurch, Aston Road and Sanders Park car parks carry no charges at all. Blue Badge holders park free in all of them, with a three-hour cap at St John Street and Windsor Street.

Related

• The Minister says Oakalls runs to summer 2027: four published finish dates, and the refusal to hand the job to National Highways.
• What the county says about penalties for the BREP delay: the contract terms, in the cabinet member’s own letter.
• Bromsgrove town centre parking: the car parks left: Stourbridge Road closed on 24 September, and where season tickets still work.
• Bromsgrove train times: 23 minutes to Birmingham, and what station parking costs.
• Bromsgrove planning news: the housing growth the A38 junctions are being enlarged for.
• Things to do in Bromsgrove: including Sanders Park, where the car park works are.
• Bromsgrove house prices.

Sources

• Worcestershire County Council live highways alerts and the council’s own highways mapping service, read on 4 October 2026, for The Strand emergency closure, its 25 January 2026 start and the county’s “Shop wall fallen onto footway” entry.
• National Highways road closure report, the seven-day spreadsheet covering 2 to 8 October 2026 (file /media/nglfh13o/), read row by row for every M5, M42 and A38 closure near the district.
• Worcestershire County Council statutory notice, 1 October 2026 (The Shuttle) for the made Broome Lane order of 8 October.
• Worcestershire County Council statutory notice, 30 September 2026 for the made Fox Lane, Barnsley Road, Mearse Lane (5 October), Brockhill Lane, Catshill Church Road and A448 Dodford layby orders, and the proposed Worcester Road and Hanover Street, Fockbury Road, Cockshutt Lane, Dark Lane Romsley and Claypit Lane orders.
• Bromsgrove District Council notice of making, Off-Street Parking Places Order 2026, 25 September 2026 for the order taking effect on 25 September and the six-week challenge period.
• Worcestershire County Council statutory notice, 23 September 2026 (Bromsgrove Advertiser) for the made Chequers Lane, Wychbold order, the proposed Dale Lane, Walton Pool Lane, Holy Cross Green, Ednall Lane, The Gutter and Sugarbrook Lane orders, and the Stourbridge Road toucan crossing notice.
• Worcestershire County Council statutory notice, 23 September 2026 (Redditch Advertiser) for the made Billesley Lane and A435 Alcester Road, Beoley orders and the proposed Rowney Green Lane order.
• Worcestershire County Council statutory notice, 24 September 2026 for the proposed School Lane, Hagley order.
• Worcestershire County Council statutory notice, 24 September 2026 (The Shuttle) for the proposed Hackmans Gate Lane, Drayton Road and Queens Hill order.
• Worcestershire County Council statutory notice, 16 September 2026 for the made Bromsgrove Road Romsley, Cofton Church Lane, Redhill Lane, Copyholt Lane, St Kenelms Pass and Broome Hill orders, and the proposed Mearse Lane (13 October) and Pikes Pool Lane orders.
• Worcestershire County Council statutory notice, 16 September 2026 for the proposed Old Birmingham Road, Alvechurch order.
• Worcestershire County Council, latest news and progress on the A38 Bromsgrove improvements for the Stoke Road Bridge closure notice of 12 to 16 October, its contingency nights and New Road diversion, the Stratford Road footway and A38 Birmingham Road drainage notices, and the upcoming works table, read from the page source on 4 October 2026.
• Worcestershire County Council statutory notice, 26 August 2026 for the first proposed versions of the Romsley, Cofton Church Lane, Redhill Lane, Copyholt Lane, St Kenelms Pass and Broome Hill orders.
• Worcestershire County Council statutory notice, 9 September 2026 for the made Wellington Road and New Road orders, and the proposed Fox Lane, Barnsley Road, Mearse Lane (5 October), Brockhill Lane, Catshill Church Road and A448 Dodford layby orders.
• Worcestershire County Council statutory notice, 9 September 2026 for the made Barkers Lane, Wythall order.
• National Highways statutory notice, 10 September 2026 for the M5 junction 1 to junction 3 order, its 2 October start, the eight-day duration and the A4252, A457, A4123 and A456 diversion.
• Worcestershire County Council statutory notice, 12 August 2026 for the A38 Eastern Bypass footway order.
• Worcestershire County Council statutory notice, 5 August 2026 for the Old Birmingham Road and Staple Flat order.
• Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council notice, 27 August 2026 for the Grange Hill, Halesowen one-way restriction.
• National Highways statutory notice, 5 August 2026 for the M5 junction 4a to M42 junction 3 order, its six-month duration and the A38, A448, A441, A4023 and A435 diversion.
• Worcestershire County Council, Phase 3 of A38 BREP improvements for the funding breakdown, the spend to end July 2026, the scheme extent, the contractors and the spring 2027 statement.
• Worcestershire County Council, BREP frequently asked questions for the end of March 2027 completion statement, checked again 20 September 2026.
• Letter from Justin Madders MP, Minister for Roads, to Bradley Thomas MP, 4 September 2026 for the early 2027 and summer 2027 dates.
• Letter from Cllr Tom Wells to Bradley Thomas MP, 14 August 2026 for the reference to Cadent gas apparatus as the principal factor.
• Bromsgrove District Council, work to begin on Sanders Park car park extension for the 17 August start, the bay numbers and the working hours.
• Bromsgrove District Council, Sanders Park Car Park Works, read 4 October 2026, for the “completed around early October 2026” statement.
• Bromsgrove District Council, Off Street Parking Order 2026 consultation for the 25 September effective date, the removal of Stourbridge Road and the four car parks where season tickets stay valid.
• Bromsgrove District Council, closure date set for car park, 18 September 2026 for the 24 September closure of Stourbridge Road.
• Bromsgrove District Council, our car parks for the car park tariffs and space counts.

Last checked 4 October 2026. Closure dates move. Check the county council’s notice or the BREP page before you plan a journey around any of these, particularly anything marked proposed or to be confirmed.