A PROGRAMME to improve bus transport and access to Billingham and disabled access to the town will continue next month.

Stockton Borough Council’s Billingham Causeway improvement scheme, which is part of the £60 million Tees Valley Bus Network Improvement project, will improve bus access and journey times.

The scheme will see bus stops created outside ASDA and John Whitehead Park and improvements will also be made to the existing pelican crossing outside John Whitehead Park. A new puffin crossing near Rothbury Street will help pedestrians cross in safety.

The project will also include lay-bys for disabled parking created outside the front of John Whitehead Park and the existing taxi rank outside the former Billingham Arms extended.

Work will start on site on Monday, March 2 and will last approximately 12 weeks.

This scheme is part of Stockton Council’s ongoing multi million pound regeneration of Billingham town centre. In January a new state-of-the-art £2.7m library and customer service centre opened. Plans for a new Aldi store on the Billingham Arms site have now been approved and it is expected the store will open in 2016.

Cllr Mike Smith, Stockton Council’s cabinet member for regeneration and transport, said: “The new road improvements will help make bus journeys smoother and quicker and we hope this will bring more people into town as well as encouraging more people to choose public transport as an accessible, convenient and economical way to travel.”