A27 road

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A27 road
The A27 Between Brighton and Lewes.
The A27 Between Brighton and Lewes.
Direction West- East
Start Whiteparish (near Salisbury)
Primary
destinations1
Southampton
Portsmouth
Havant
Chichester
Bognor Regis
Worthing
Brighton and Hove
Lewes
Newhaven
Hailsham
Eastbourne
End Pevensey (near Bexhill)
Roads joined M3 motorway
A3(M) motorway
M27 motorway
M275 motorway
A22 road
A23 road
A24 road
A26 road
A29 road
A259 road
A270 road
A275 road
A280 road
A283 road
A284 road
A286 road
A2025 road
A2030 road
A2031 road
A2038 road
A2270 road
A3 road
A32 road
A33 road
A36 road
A334 road
A335 road
A3023 road
A3024 road
A3051 road
A3090 road
Notes
  1. Primary destinations as specified by the Department for Transport.


The A27 is a major road in England. It runs from its junction with the A36 at Whiteparish (near Salisbury) in the county of Wiltshire. Heading east it closely parallels the south coast where it passes through West Sussex and terminates at Pevensey (near Eastbourne and Bexhill) in East Sussex. It has been voted as one of the busiest trunk roads in the UK.

Contents


[edit] The route

The road starts at its junction with the A36 at Whiteparish. It runs through Romsey, Swaythling, West End and Bursledon. It then closely parallels the south coast and travels on via Fareham, Cosham, Havant, Chichester, Arundel, Worthing, Shoreham-by-Sea, Brighton, Hove, Falmer, Lewes and Polegate where it then terminates at Pevensey in East Sussex.

A section of the A27, running from the eastern end of the M27 to the end of the road at Pevensey forms part of the long-distance South Coast Trunk Road. Much of the road has been improved to dual carriageway standard, with the westernmost section of the trunk portion even having as much as four lanes plus a hard shoulder in each direction, and on a motorway alignment with grade-separated junctions. This is perhaps a reflection that the M27 was once proposed to run as far as Chichester.

Between Chichester and Lewes, there are frequent roundabouts disrupting the mainline of the road, although the road largely retains a two-lane dual-carriageway standard. There are, however a couple of sections of single-carriageway; at Arundel, where a proposed bypass scheme was dropped in 2003, and at Worthing, where the possibility of a bypass has often been discussed since 1967, even getting as far as passing the inspector's report at a public inquiry, but was dropped in 1996 following rising costs. These are both areas of known traffic congestion during times of peak usage.

After leaving Worthing the A27 passes through Lancing and crosses the River Adur near Shoreham. It then runs through the Southwick Hill Tunnel and follows a path bypassing the rear of Brighton where it meets the A23.

East of Lewes the A27 meets the A26. From this point the road is largely single-carriageway apart from a 2.7 km bypass for Polegate which opened in 2002. A high accident risk site and cause of traffic congestion is the Beddingham Level Crossing, just east of Lewes. The South Coast Multi-Modal Study proposed a dual-carriageway bypass, but the Highways Agency has opted for a cheaper single-carriageway. Subject to the results of a public inquiry, construction started mid-2006.

At Pevensey, the road ends, and the South Coast Trunk Road transfers over to the A259, this coast road starts in Emsworth and shadows the route of the A27.

[edit] Landmarks on the route

[edit] Gallery

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[edit] External links