Church Lane is on temporary lights until 10 September and Hereward Way car park is shut. Plus Hamsey Road, the Cuilfail Tunnel and the Exceat Bridge build.

Three sets of works are worth knowing about in the Lewes district this summer: a long job on Church Lane in Lewes that has taken a town-centre car park out of use, a road that has been shut at Barcombe since December, and the Exceat Bridge replacement on the A259, which is now in its piling phase.

Everything below is from East Sussex Highways, which manages the road network here for East Sussex County Council, and was checked on 10 August 2026.

Church Lane, Lewes: temporary lights and a closed car park

East Sussex Highways and Balfour Beatty are working on Church Lane between the junctions with Mayhew Lane and St Michael’s Terrace, from Monday 13 April to Thursday 10 September 2026, between 8am and 4:30pm.

The road stays open, on temporary traffic lights. The lights are manually controlled between 7am and 7pm so that queues are worked down rather than left to a timer.

The detail that catches people out is the car park. The public car park in Hereward Way is closed for the whole duration of the works, because it is being used as the site compound. If Hereward Way is where you normally leave the car for the station or the High Street, it is not available until the job finishes.

Two bus stops on the route are suspended while the works run.

The work itself is not resurfacing, or not only. Church Lane at that point sits on a concrete slab that forms the roof of the garages along St Michael’s Terrace. The carriageway is being excavated so a waterproofing membrane can be laid on the slab, protecting the steel reinforcement inside the concrete from water. The road is resurfaced afterwards. That is why a short stretch of street takes five months.

Hamsey Road, Barcombe: closed since December

Hamsey Road has been closed since Wednesday 10 December 2025, when a culvert under it collapsed and left a void in the carriageway. It is one of the longer road closures in the county.

Repairs finally began on Monday 27 July 2026 and are expected to take about ten weeks, which points to the road reopening around the start of October. The work involves taking out the damaged culvert, installing a new pipe, building new drainage and then rebuilding the road.

The signed diversion runs via Cooksbridge Road, Deadmantree Hill, the A275, The Drove, North End Lane and Hamsey Lane, and back the same way. It was routed deliberately to avoid the bridge on Church Road, which has a 7.5 tonne weight restriction and is not suitable for lorries.

Access to properties inside the closure is managed by the site team during working hours. There is no through route.

Exceat Bridge: the A259 rebuild

The A259 crossing of the River Cuckmere at Exceat, on the edge of the Seven Sisters Country Park, is being replaced. The existing bridge dates from about 1870, is single-lane with priority to eastbound traffic, and now runs on temporary traffic lights. Traffic backs up in both directions at peak times, and pedestrians have to cross the road twice to reach the footway.

The replacement is a two-lane bridge to the north of the current one, with proper footways, viewing platforms and a shared space outside the Cuckmere Inn. It is funded by £7.9m from the Levelling Up Fund awarded in 2021, £11.28m from Bus Service Improvement Plan Round 1 money, and East Sussex County Council capital.

As of the July 2026 update, vegetation clearance is finished on both banks and the site is in its piling phase. Sheet piling was expected to be complete by mid-August, with piling on the west bank continuing to the end of August. On the east bank the ground is still being raised before piling starts. Heavy machinery and material deliveries are moving across the site under specific road movement orders, so expect disruption on that stretch through the rest of the summer.

This matters well beyond Exceat. The A259 is the coastal route linking Seaford, Newhaven, Peacehaven and Telscombe Cliffs to Eastbourne, and it carries local traffic that has no realistic alternative.

The routes that carry the district

Main roads through the Lewes district and where the current works are A schematic map. The A27 runs east to west across the top through Lewes towards Brighton one way and Polegate the other. The A26 runs north from Lewes through the Cuilfail Tunnel towards Uckfield. The A275 runs north west from Lewes towards Chailey and Barcombe, where Hamsey Road is closed for culvert repairs. The A259 runs along the coast through Peacehaven, Newhaven and Seaford to Exceat, where the bridge is being replaced. Church Lane in Lewes town centre is on temporary traffic lights until 10 September 2026. Four roads carry the district, and three of them have works on now Schematic, not to scale. Source: East Sussex Highways scheme pages, checked 10 August 2026. A27 to Brighton A27 to Polegate A26 to Uckfield A275 A259 coast road LEWES Newhaven Peacehaven Seaford Barcombe Church Lane: lights to 10 Sept Hamsey Rd: shut Exceat Bridge: piling A26 through the Cuilfail Tunnel The A27 past Lewes is a National Highways road. Everything else here is East Sussex County Council's.
Where the district's current works sit on its four main routes.

The A27 runs east to west past Lewes, linking Brighton to Polegate and Eastbourne. It is a National Highways road, not a county one. The £75m A27 East of Lewes scheme between Firle and Polegate finished in spring 2023 and delivered a 13km shared-use path, a footbridge over the Cuckmere and junction improvements at Polegate. There is no successor scheme running now, so if the A27 is slow it is traffic, not works.

The A26 takes traffic north out of Lewes towards Uckfield through the Cuilfail Tunnel, which links Phoenix Causeway to the A27 at Southerham Roundabout. The tunnel is about 430 metres long, opened in 1980, and exists to keep through traffic out of the historic centre. It closes overnight roughly once every three months so the interior can be cleaned and the lighting, jet fans and drainage inspected, which cannot be done with traffic running. Those closures are signed and diverted in advance.

The A275 heads north-west towards Chailey and Newick, and is currently doing duty as the diversion for the Hamsey Road closure at Barcombe.

The A259 is the coast road, and the Exceat Bridge works sit on it.

Parking while the works are on

The Hereward Way car park in Lewes is closed until the Church Lane works finish on 10 September 2026. Plan around it.

If you are visiting the Cliffe end of town in the evening, the public car park on Harvey’s Way, BN7 2JW, is free after 5pm according to Harvey’s Brewery, whose rear yard entrance is on the same road.

Lewes has no park and ride. The realistic alternative to driving into the centre is the train, and the district’s rail service is unusually good for its size: the branch from Seaford runs 37 times a day and Brighton is 14 minutes away.

How to check before you travel

East Sussex Highways publishes live roadworks through One.Network, which pulls in works from the county council, other councils and utility companies, and is updated daily. Their own highway schemes page lists the bigger jobs with start and end dates, and it is the source for most of what is above.

Note who is responsible for what. Roadworks on the A27 are National Highways. Everything else in this district is East Sussex County Council, delivered by Balfour Beatty. Utility works, which are the most common cause of a set of lights appearing overnight, belong to the utility company and appear on One.Network rather than on the county’s scheme list.

Sources