Somerset Council’s travel and transport teams were on the ground when Storm Ciaran hit at the beginning of the month.

The storm brought high winds and extraordinary amounts of rain to the County over the evening of Wednesday 1 November and into the next morning. The Council prepared as well as possible; all planned work for Thursday 2 November was deferred so that as much manpower as possible was available to deal with the storm response.

The team had twenty tree surgeon crews on standby for the evening that the storm hit; twelve trees alone fell that night and nineteen flooding incidents were recorded. Nine jetting and gully clearance crews were also available – and all were deployed once the majority of the storm’s rain fell. In addition, some proactive river pumping on the Levels before the storm hit ensured that the rivers didn’t come over the top of the banks while the storm was at its worst.

The emergency road closure gates at Cutts Road, New Road and Langport Road were closed as a result of the storm. The swift closure of these gates prevented drivers from trying to beat dangerous levels of surface water.

Somerset Council's highways team are progressing well on some patching works in Taunton.

Work finished on Priory Avenue on November 10th - the team are now moving to Mountway Road to finish the scheme.

The road will be closed between 7:30am and 6pm from Monday 27 November to Thursday 30 November inclusive, so that the scheme can be completed as safely and as swiftly as possible.

Bridgwater's main road was closed for two weeks this month as the team got on with some resurfacing work.

The resurfacing has been taking place between 6:30pm and 11:30pm on weekdays only, so that the road users of Bridgwater don't experience any more disruption than necessary.

Make sure to follow @TravelSomerset on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook for live travel updates, roadworks and other highways news.

Party season is almost here and the message from Somerset Council is have a hassle-free night and ‘Bus It.’

The Council is using ring-fenced Government funding to subsidise evening services connecting Taunton with Minehead, Bridgwater, Wellington and Chard after 8pm. Most services run a last bus from Taunton up to 11pm.

There are hourly services between Bridgwater and Musgrove Park Hospital, and Silk Mills Park and Ride and the hospital.

To plan your journey, visit our Think Travel webpage.

As we do every November, Somerset Road Safety participated in road safety charity Brake’s Road Safety Week initiative.

This year’s theme was “let’s talk about speed” – one of the fatal five factors of collisions; it is so common yet so avoidable.

Brake ran an investigation into speed and its consequences; it’s a main contributor to 345 road deaths a year along with 3,388 serious injuries.

Make sure you like the Somerset Road Safety page on Facebook, and search @SC_RoadSafety on X (formerly Twitter).