TfL has named a reopening target for Gallows Corner for the first time in 18 months, and warned that one final full weekend closure has to happen before it.

Transport for London has put a date on Gallows Corner for the first time since the flyover works began. Its travel advice page for the junction now says it plans to reopen everything by the end of September 2026.

There is a condition attached, and it is one nobody has been warned about before. One more full weekend closure has to happen first, and TfL has not said which weekend it will be.

What TfL has actually said

The travel advice page for the works carries a new heading, “Full reopening”, and this under it:

We plan to reopen the entire junction by the end of September 2026. This means reopening both the roundabout and flyover in all directions to general traffic, with all diversions and traffic management removed.

Directly beneath that comes the weekend:

Before re-opening we need to make one final full weekend closure. This is to reinstate the road surface, road markings and street furniture. More details will be available in the near future.

No date, no times and no diversion plan have been published for that closure. When we checked the same page on 1 September, it carried neither passage, and TfL had committed only to announcing a reopening date “as soon as possible”.

That is a genuine step forward. It is also a target rather than a promise, on a project whose original completion date was September 2025.

Two TfL pages, two different stories

The problem for anyone trying to plan around this is that TfL’s other Gallows Corner page has not moved.

Its scheme page still says Essex & Suffolk Water “currently expect to complete their works and hand the site back to TfL by the end of August 2026”, and that TfL “will provide an expected reopening date as soon as possible”. The handback happened on 31 August. The reopening date now exists, on the other page.

The two pages also describe the last phase of work differently:

  • The travel advice page says one final full weekend closure, to reinstate the road surface, markings and street furniture.
  • The scheme page says “a final phase of closures, predominantly at night”, for the same three jobs.

A weekend closure and a run of night closures are very different things for anyone living on the diversion routes, and TfL has not said which page is right. The travel advice page is the one it has been keeping current, so that is the one to watch.

What TfL's two Gallows Corner pages say, side by side Comparison. On the handover: the travel advice page treats it as done, the scheme page says the water company expects to hand back by the end of August 2026. On a reopening date: the travel advice page says TfL plans to reopen the entire junction by the end of September 2026, the scheme page says TfL will provide a date as soon as possible. On the final works: the travel advice page says one final full weekend closure, the scheme page says a final phase of closures predominantly at night. Same junction, same website, two different answers TfL's Gallows Corner travel advice page and scheme page, both checked 8 September 2026 Travel advice page (updated) Scheme page (not updated) The water main handover Treated as done "by the end of August 2026" A reopening date "by the end of September 2026" "as soon as possible" The final works One full weekend closure Closures "predominantly at night" Date of that closure Not published Not published Quotations are TfL's own wording. Havering Council's separate deadline for full reopening is the end of October 2026. Graphic by Romford Today.
The scheme page still describes a handover that has already happened. The travel advice page is the one TfL is keeping current.

The closure record still ends on 30 September

TfL’s live disruption record for the junction, TIMS-206772, was last modified at 23:12 on Monday 7 September and still books the works to 22:59 on 30 September 2026 (TfL Unified API, A12 disruption feed). The record’s own summary of the closure has not changed: it still reads “Re-opening date to be confirmed”.

The works started on 15 March 2025 by that record’s own clock, which makes this the eighteenth month of a scheme first advertised as finishing in September 2025. The eastbound flyover reopened on 10 May 2026. Essex & Suffolk Water, which was relocating a strategic water main under the junction on TfL’s behalf, said on 28 August that “our work at Gallows Corner is now complete” and handed the site back on 31 August.

What is still shut

From TfL’s travel advice page, checked on 8 September:

  • No access to the westbound flyover.
  • No access from the A12 Eastern Avenue East eastbound onto the roundabout.
  • No access from the roundabout onto the A12 Eastern Avenue East westbound.
  • No access from the A12 Colchester Road onto the roundabout.
  • No access from the roundabout onto the A127 Southend Arterial Road eastbound.

Open are the eastbound flyover between the A12 and the A127, the roundabout onto the A12 Colchester Road eastbound, and Straight Road and Main Road in both directions. Lane restrictions remain on the eastbound A12 and on every approach to the roundabout. TfL still advises drivers making longer westbound journeys to use the M25, then the M11 and A13.

Buses through the junction are running 3 to 5 minutes late, on routes 174, 496, 498 and 499.

What it means for you

  • If you drive through Gallows Corner at weekends, watch for the closure announcement. It is the one piece of disruption still to come, TfL has confirmed it is coming, and it has not been dated. Our Romford roadworks and travel page is updated on every visit and will carry the dates as soon as they appear.
  • Nothing changes on the ground today. The same five movements are shut and the same diversions apply, so keep planning around them until TfL says otherwise.
  • Do not treat the end of September as a fixed date. It is TfL’s plan, published on one of its two pages about the junction, while the other still says a date is to be confirmed. The original finish date on this scheme was September 2025.
  • If the weekend closure lands on you, the diversion routes are the pressure points. TfL’s own figures put 3 to 5 minutes of extra journey time on Ardleigh Green Road, Gubbins Lane and Gooshays Drive, 1 to 3 minutes on North Street heading away from Romford, and extra peak delay on the westbound A13 and southbound M11.

Havering Council’s position has not changed either. It has set TfL an end-of-October deadline for full reopening, and around 2,000 residents petitioned it for partial council tax refunds for every month the works ran past the original date. The council says it legally cannot rebate council tax. The last written update TfL gave the council was published on 10 July and carried no end date; the council said then that it would share weekly TfL updates on its own channels, and has published none since.

Sources