Ilford Roadworks This Week: Cranbrook Rd, Woodford New Rd

Cranbrook Road in Ilford has temporary traffic lights in all directions at Coventry Road until 11.59pm on Thursday 8 October, for Thames Water works.

Four other things to know this week.

• Woodford New Road (A104) shuts overnight in both directions between the North Circular at Southend Road and Oak Hill, 8pm to 5am, from Monday 5 to Saturday 10 October, for resurfacing.
• Winchester Road in Ilford stays shut until 12 October, between Gordon Road and Park Road, for gas main replacement.
• South Park Terrace in Mayfield closes from Sunday 11 to Monday 12 October for resurfacing.
• The A406 northbound loses three lanes at the M11 overnight from Monday 12 to Friday 16 October.

Everything below was rechecked against the council register, TfL’s live road feed and TfL’s line status in the early hours of Sunday 4 October 2026.

Shut right now on borough roads

These entries on the council register affect a journey now:

• Winchester Road, Ilford, between Gordon Road and Park Road, IG1 1SE, Clementswood ward. Cadent gas main replacement. To 12 October.
• Airthrie Road, Goodmayes, from Abbotsford Road to Kinfauns Road. Kenson Highways footway resurfacing. To 13 November.
• Castleton Road, Goodmayes. Kenson Highways footway resurfacing. To 13 November.
• Broadmead Road, Woodford. Closed to traffic since July 2023. No reopening date. See below.

Winchester Road has 11 days left to run. The closed section sits between two of the streets you would otherwise use to reach Ilford Hill and the town centre.

The footway works on Airthrie Road and Castleton Road have been running since 20 August. The carriageway stays open on both.

Elmcroft Avenue in Wanstead Village, which closed from Monday 28 to Wednesday 30 September for resurfacing, is still on the register but its dates have passed.

Coming up

• South Park Terrace, Mayfield. Kenson Highways carriageway resurfacing. Full road closure for one day, Sunday 11 to Monday 12 October.

The register gives a start date and an end date rather than hours, so a one-day job spans two calendar dates. Take the second date as the morning the road is expected back.

What TfL has on Redbridge roads

TfL’s live road feed carries 104 road disruptions across London tonight. One is live in Redbridge, and three more are booked for the next fortnight:

• A123 Cranbrook Road at Coventry Road, Ilford (IG1). Temporary traffic signals in all directions for Thames Water works, from 9am on Saturday 3 October to 11.59pm on Thursday 8 October.
• A104 Woodford New Road, both directions between the A406 at Southend Road and Oak Hill, on the Woodford and Waltham Forest border (E17, E18 and IG8). Closed for resurfacing 8pm to 5am each night, from Monday 5 October to the early hours of Sunday 11 October. TfL’s advice is to use another route.
• A406 North Circular, northbound, in the stretch TfL lists under Ilford and Barking (IG1, IG11, E6 and E12). Lane restrictions for what TfL calls “TKJV works”, 10pm to 3am on the nights of Tuesday 6 and Wednesday 7 October.
• A406 North Circular, northbound at the M11, South Woodford. Lanes one to three closed overnight while the M11 northbound is shut, 10pm to 5.30am on the five nights from Monday 12 to Friday 16 October.

The temporary lights on Bush Road in Wanstead and on the High Road at Barley Lane, both in last week’s update, have come off the feed.

Gallows Corner in Havering, about five miles east of Ilford, fully reopened on 21 September after three years of works, and TfL’s feed carries no record for it.

Broadmead Road: cross-party support, still no decision

Broadmead Road in Woodford has been closed to traffic since July 2023. The bridge carries the road over the Central line between Woodford and Roding Valley, and it was shut immediately after an inspection found significant structural defects. In the council’s own words, “as soon as the defects were discovered, the road was closed immediately to prevent potential loss of life or serious injury”.

A motion on the bridge went to Full Council at 7pm on Thursday 24 September, moved by Cllr Jo Blackman and seconded by Cllr Guy Williams. The council has not yet published the minutes. But the Leader, Cllr Kam Rai, wrote in his update on 25 September that “councillors from different political parties came together to support our bid”, and that he hopes “for a positive decision soon”. It carries figures the council has not published anywhere else, and it puts a construction timetable on the project for the first time:

• The scheme is now described as a £100m project, with a £20m Redbridge contribution alongside the £80m bid to the Department for Transport’s Structures Fund. The fund itself is £1bn.
• If the money is agreed, construction begins in 2027/28 and completes in 2029/30.
• London Fire Brigade data shows the closure has increased attendance times between the bridge and the M11, and an LFB report shows “a theoretical increase of around 2.3x”.
• The motion warns that the bridge keeps deteriorating while closed, and that without intervention “there is a risk that it will eventually lead to the closing of the Central Line as it becomes too dangerous to run trains beneath it”.

The motion asks councillors to back the bid across party lines and to have the Leader and chief executive write to the Transport Secretary, Rt Hon Heidi Alexander MP, in support of it. You can read it in full in the agenda for the meeting.

The decision itself has still not landed. The council’s project page has not moved since 18 September (checked again on 4 October) and still says the government’s answer is expected “in the coming weeks”. That update was the one confirming the council is moving allotment holders off the Horn Lane allotments, because the site is needed to store materials and machinery and to provide access during the works.

The rest of the background is unchanged. The structure dates from 1937 and the closure affects approximately 15,000 vehicle journeys a day on Department for Transport annual average daily flow data. Engineers get about 1.5 hours a night to survey it, because it sits over a live Central line track. A Section 41 notice has been posted under the bridge telling anyone parking there to move out, because of the risk of falling debris.

Until the funding decision lands there is no reopening date and no construction start date, and anyone planning a route through Woodford should assume the bridge stays shut.

Trains: no weekend closures on Redbridge lines in October

TfL’s line status service, checked on 4 October, shows good service on the Central line every weekend to 1 November. The Elizabeth line has Sunday works on 11, 18 and 25 October and 1 November, but all of them are west of Paddington, between Hayes, Heathrow, Slough and Maidenhead. None touches Ilford, Seven Kings, Goodmayes or Chadwell Heath. As we found last month, the status service does not always carry planned works far ahead, so recheck before a weekend journey.

The last Central line closure through Redbridge, on 26 and 27 September, is over. Every other Central line closure in TfL’s published schedule, which runs to March 2027 as we read it on 25 September, is on the west of the line: White City, Ealing Broadway, Northolt, West Ruislip and Marble Arch westwards. Not one of them touches a Redbridge station.

The Elizabeth line is the other way round. The same schedule listed six weekends between November and February when Ilford, Seven Kings, Goodmayes and Chadwell Heath lose their service:

• Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 November: no service Paddington to Abbey Wood and Shenfield.
• Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 January, Saturday 16 and Sunday 17 January, Sunday 24 January, Sunday 31 January and Sunday 14 February: no service between Liverpool Street (the National Rail platforms) and Whitechapel and Shenfield.

Before all of that, on Sunday 15 November, TfL lists no service Paddington to Liverpool Street and Whitechapel to Abbey Wood until 10.15, which removes the through route from Ilford into the West End for that morning.

What it means for you

• If you drive Cranbrook Road, expect temporary lights at Coventry Road until Thursday night, and on Sunday 4 October avoid it between 12pm and 2pm.
• If you use Woodford New Road late at night, it is shut from 8pm to 5am all next week.
• If you use Winchester Road to reach Ilford Hill and the town centre, plan around it until 12 October.
• If you live on South Park Terrace, the road shuts on Sunday 11 October.
• The Central and Elizabeth lines run normally through Redbridge every weekend in October.
• Broadmead Road still has no reopening date.

Our other practical pages: Ilford bin collection days, parking in Ilford, Ilford council tax bands and Ilford train times to London.