MAJOR roadworks are set to resume next week, with closures in Winchester city centre.

The £1.4million Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) project is scheduled to begin again on Monday, January ,8 following an embargo on repairs over the festive period.

Road closures will be put in place on St Clement Street and Staple Gardens during the roadworks, which is seeing underground cables replaced over a 10-month period.

The next phase will see work carried out in St Clement Street and Staple Gardens, before moving onto Southgate Street. They will then move to High Street, Trafalgar Street and finally Jewry Street.

Although road closures will be in place, the roads will remain open to residents and businesses at all times.

A spokesman for SSEN said: “We will do everything possible to ensure we complete our works on schedule. However, we hope you will appreciate that site conditions may cause some adjustments and if this is the case we will aim to let you know as soon as possible.”

Work began in October to install more than 1.9km of cables. The project was then put on hold in mid November to avoid disruption to Christmas trade.

Kevin Cracknell, SSEN’s network upgrades manager, said: “The city centre is continually growing and more customers brings more demand, and that is why we need to upgrade the infrastructure.”

“We want to do everything we can to keep the lights on for all of the local community, not just for now but for many years to come.”