Kensington Roadworks This Week: Westway and High St Turn Ban

Top of the Kensington roadworks list this week: the A40 Westway is closed eastbound this weekend. Transport for London shut it between the Westway Roundabout and the Marylebone Flyover at 10pm on Friday 2 October, and it stays shut until 5am on Monday 5 October. There is a signed diversion. At 2.05pm on Saturday 3 October TfL’s traffic register was telling drivers to “use an alternative route” and said traffic was flowing well on the diversion.

The westbound side stays open for now, but still on two lanes of three. The same register carries that restriction from 24 June to Saturday 5 December 2026, and TfL’s works page says one lane “remains closed while we continue extensive structural inspections to make sure the flyover is safe to use”. Westbound gets its own full closures on the weekends of 23 and 30 October.

The second thing to plan around this week is in Kensington itself. You cannot turn right from Kensington High Street into Campden Hill Road until 11 October, while M Group works there for Thames Water. Two emergency Thames Water jobs have also appeared since our last update: Penywern Road is closed at Warwick Road to 6 October, and Cranley Gardens is closed at numbers 8 to 11 to 7 October.

Albert Bridge is still closed to motor vehicles, as it has been since 7 February 2026, and there is still no reopening date.

The borough’s own closures come from the council’s Works and Events Bulletin, now dated 1 October 2026 and reissued weekly. Dates move and many jobs carry backup dates, so check before you plan around any of them.

The Westway: shut eastbound now, westbound later in October

London Fire Brigade was called to Great Western Road, Westbourne Park at 6.23pm on 24 June 2026. Four fire engines and about 25 firefighters attended, from North Kensington and Paddington fire stations. A double decker electric bus was destroyed in the bus garage there, along with two electric vehicle charging points. Nobody was hurt, the brigade had the fire under control by 7.11pm, and the cause went to its Fire Investigation Team.

The road above was shut for inspection and has been restricted ever since. By late September one of the two closed westbound lanes was back, and TfL’s works page still says “No buses are on diversion”.

TfL lists three directional weekend closures in October, between the Westway Roundabout and the Marylebone Flyover, with signed diversions:

• Eastbound, from 22:00 Friday 2 October to 05:00 Monday 5 October. This is the one in force now.
• Westbound, from 22:00 Friday 23 October to 14:00 Sunday 25 October.
• Westbound, from 22:00 Friday 30 October to 05:00 Monday 2 November.

Keep the weekend of 16 October in mind too. TfL’s works page says the eastbound closure runs on the weekend of Friday 16 October only “if bad weather prevents the work”. Its traffic register entry for this weekend’s closure is worded more firmly: it says the road “will be closed continuously eastbound” from 22:00 on Friday 2 October to 05:00 on Monday 5 October, “and from 22:00 Friday 16 October to 05:00 Monday 19 October”. The council’s bulletin of 1 October lists 16 to 19 October as the backup. Until TfL’s two pages agree, treat that weekend as possible.

The council and TfL also still differ on the westbound weekends. The council’s bulletin lists 23 to 26 October, ending at 5am on the Monday, with 30 October to 2 November as its backup. TfL treats 30 October as a second closure and ends the 23 October one at 2pm on the Sunday. TfL manages the road, so its dates are the ones to work from.

The Westway is carried on around 21 bridge structures built between 1969 and 1970, it normally carries about 96,000 vehicles a day, and the speed limit along the whole stretch was cut from 40mph to 30mph in July 2020 to protect the ageing expansion joints.

Closed or restricted right now

These are live on the council’s bulletin of 1 October, or on TfL’s register, as at Saturday 3 October.

A batch of jobs from our last update has finished or come off the list: King’s Road at Beaufort Street, Redesdale Street, Courtfield Gardens, Onslow Square at number 39, the Royal Hospital Road footway, the Kensington Road lane closure at Princes Gate, Redfield Lane, and the night lifts outside Harrods on Basil Street and Hans Road.

The UK Power Networks side road closures along Kensington Road were due to finish on 1 October. The bulletin still prints their backup dates, Queen’s Gate southbound on 3 to 4 October, De Vere Gardens on 5 October and Palace Gate on 7 to 8 October, but does not say whether the first dates went ahead. If you use those junctions, look for the signs before assuming they are clear.

The next fortnight, day by day

Kensington High Street takes the most of it. The right turn into Campden Hill Road is banned to 11 October, the right turn into Kensington Church Street goes for 9 to 11 October, and Sheffield Terrace is shut at the Kensington Church Street end on 13 and 14 October. The Campden Hill Road ban comes back from 26 to 30 October, this time for Thames Water directly.

Over the borough boundary, Princes Gardens is closed at Exhibition Road for a crane on 9 and 16 October, 8am to 6pm. That one is in Westminster.

Later in October

• Kensington Place, Kensington Church Street to Jameson Street, closed 19 to 31 October for UK Power Networks.
• Allen Street outside Avon House, closed 19 to 23 October, backup 26 to 30 October.
• Knightsbridge underpass, Sloane Street to Piccadilly, closed overnight 10pm to 6am on 20 to 21 October and 25 to 27 October while Westminster puts up its Christmas lights. That is in Westminster.
• Young Street, exit to Kensington High Street closed 24 to 25 October.
• Onslow Square northbound closed at Fulham Road 26 to 30 October for Cadent Gas, and St Charles Square closed outside 27 and 61 on the same dates for UK Power Networks.
• Earl’s Court Square, closed at number 53 northbound and the cycle lane suspended at number 41, 27 to 29 October.

Albert Bridge: still shut, and still no date

A routine inspection in February found a crack in a cast iron component at one of the bridge abutments. The council closed the 1873 crossing to motor traffic the same day. It is still open to pedestrians and cyclists.

The council says it is committed to reopening in 2027 but that “it is not currently possible to provide a definitive reopening date”. The works register still carries the closure to 24 February 2027, with a note that the date “will be revised when final repair works start in December 2026”. Treat any reopening date you see as provisional.

The council’s page was last updated on 29 September and now has a September entry, though it is thin: the council says it posted on Instagram about how satellite imagery is helping it repair the broken component and monitor the bridge’s movement. The August entries still stand:

• Repainting of the bridge’s internal walls and parapets is under way. It is the first of a programme of maintenance jobs being done while the bridge is shut, alongside new lighting, refurbished toll booths and a new road surface.
• A bid has gone in to the Department for Transport Structures Fund, a competitive capital programme launched in April 2026. Successful bidders will be announced in autumn 2026. The council now says that if it is not awarded the money it will consider “borrowing or rephasing other projects within our Capital Programme”, and that it will repair the bridge regardless of the outcome.

The council is spending up to £8.5 million on the repair and refurbishment, and says physical construction on the bridge will start before Christmas 2026. The work involves freeing a seized axle in the joint as well as replacing the cracked part, and temporary works have to go in first to hold the weight of the bridge while the damaged component comes out. The replacement has to be designed and manufactured from scratch, which is the reason for the wait.

The overnight Wandsworth closures of Albert Bridge Road and Wandsworth Bridge that we listed last time have dropped off the council’s bulletin, and both of their published end dates have passed.

Events that close roads

• Phillimore Walk still closes every Saturday, Hornton Street to Campden Hill, 7.30am to 3pm until 28 November, for the market.
• The Palace to Palace charity cycle ride crosses Fulham Road at Beaufort Street on Sunday 4 October, 6.50am to 5.45pm.
• Chelsea’s next three home fixtures are Saturday 10 October against AFC Bournemouth, Saturday 24 October against Tottenham Hotspur and Saturday 31 October against Manchester United. Heavy pedestrian traffic is flagged on Fulham Road, Gunter Grove, Ifield Road, Hortensia Road and King’s Road between 12.30pm and 5pm each time.
• The Rosary Crusade of Reparation procession uses Sloane Street from Pont Street to Knightsbridge on Saturday 17 October, 2pm to 3.30pm.
• Portobello Road closes to vehicles every Sunday from 6 to 20 December for street trading, which is the only December closure the bulletin carries.

Longer closures that are not going away

Building sites hold several streets for another year or more:

• Pelham Street, one direction closed to November 2027 and a second job there to December 2027.
• Kynance Mews and Kynance Place at Gloucester Road, to December 2027.
• Hans Crescent eastbound between Pavilion Road and Sloane Street, except for construction vehicles, to December 2027.
• Chelsea Bridge Road at Chelsea Barracks, to December 2027.
• Earl’s Walk at number 29, closed for site deliveries, to December 2027.
• Cadogan Lane, footway at 42 to 44, to December 2027.
• Earl’s Court Road footway outside number 24, to March 2027.
• Pont Street, restoration of the cabmen’s shelter, to December 2027.

Three Kensington High Street area jobs stay marked on hold rather than cancelled: a Thames Water closure of Hornton Street at the junction, a nightly right turn ban at Holland Road, and the Fulham Road lights outside Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

The pavement programme, autumn and winter

The council’s footway improvement scheme works 8am to 5pm with a local diversion, and the list now runs to autumn 2027. Kensal Road and Abingdon Road start within the fortnight and are in the table above. After that:

• Glebe Place, Cheyne Row to the nursery school to King’s Road, 20 October to 7 December.
• Notting Hill Gate, Farmer Street to number 63, 21 October to 18 November, then Hillgate Street to number 97, 19 to 25 November.
• St Lawrence Terrace, Chesterton Road to Bonchurch Road, 26 October to 10 December.
• Sheffield Terrace, Hornton Street to Kensington Church Street, 30 October to 30 November.
• Wedlake Street, Kensal Road to the end, 2 to 30 November.
• Gordon Place, Pitt Street to Campden Grove, 3 to 20 November.
• Dovehouse Street, Britten Street to Cale Street, 6 November to 18 December.
• Appleford Road in Golborne, 12 November to 14 December.
• Stanford Road, 19 November to 8 December.
• Kelso Place, 9 to 17 December.
• Pembridge Villas, 4 January to 24 March 2027, with Blenheim Crescent, Brunswick Gardens and Chepstow Crescent also starting on 4 January.
• All Saints Road, 5 February to 9 October 2027, the longest job on the list by a distance.

What is coming but not yet dated

The three jobs most likely to cause real disruption are still marked TBC, as they have been all autumn:

• Overnight carriageway resurfacing, 8pm to 6am, on Holland Park Avenue (Addison Avenue to Norland Square), Notting Hill Gate westbound at the Pembridge Road junction, and Kensington High Street eastbound between Hornton Street and Derry Street. These are the borough’s three busiest surface routes, which is why the work is booked at night.
• A long list of residential resurfacing closures with no dates, including Anderson Street, Basil Street, Bevington Road, Brompton Square, Cadogan Place, Campden Hill Road, Culford Gardens, Eldon Road, Elvaston Place and Ixworth Place.

The Tube this weekend

TfL’s live status at about 4.15pm on Saturday 3 October showed good service on the District, Circle, Piccadilly and Hammersmith and City lines, the four that serve most of the borough. The Central line had minor delays, but only between Loughton and Epping. We could not get TfL’s future planned works data to load for the rest of the fortnight, so check TfL’s status page before travelling next weekend.

What it means for you

If you drive into town on the Westway, do not use it eastbound before 5am on Monday 5 October. Follow the signed diversion. Westbound is open but still on two lanes, and it gets its own full closures on the weekends of 23 and 30 October. Keep 16 October free in your head as well, until TfL settles whether the eastbound closure repeats.

If you drive along Kensington High Street, the road stays open, but the right turns into Campden Hill Road (to 11 October) and Kensington Church Street (9 to 11 October) do not. Go round.

If you live in Earl’s Court or South Kensington, the two emergency Thames Water closures, Penywern Road and Cranley Gardens, are the ones that may change your route to the front door this week.

If you cross the river from Chelsea, Albert Bridge is still shut to cars and will be into 2027, so its traffic is still going to the neighbouring crossings.

If you park on the street near any of these, watch for suspension notices. The council posts them on the affected bays, and a suspended bay is not a place to leave a car.

What it costs to keep a car here

Resident parking permit prices changed on 1 April 2026 and are built from a base cost plus a charge for every gram of CO2 your car emits.

For a twelve month permit the council charges a £73 base, then £1 for each CO2 g/km. A fully electric car pays the base cost only. A diesel registered before 1 September 2015, which will be pre-Euro 6, pays a £94 surcharge on top. A second vehicle at the same address adds £108.

If your car’s CO2 figure is not on record, the council charges a flat addition instead: £147 a year for an engine of 1549cc or less and £204 above that. Refunds are paid within 28 days minus a £13 administration fee.

Three, six and twelve month permits are all available, and the shorter ones are proportionally worse value. The base cost is £44 for three months against £73 for twelve. Use the council’s parking permit calculator to get the figure for your own registration. Our parking guide has the visitor and bay rules.

One thing to know if you pay monthly: since 27 August 2026 the council has not been able to set up a new monthly permit subscription or autorenewal, which it puts down to a technical issue. Existing subscriptions carry on as normal, and 3, 6 and 12 month permits can still be bought. The banner was last updated on 17 September and the council says it will update it when the problem is fixed.

Charging zones: what applies here

ULEZ applies across the whole borough. The Ultra Low Emission Zone covers all London boroughs and the City of London, and the charge is £12.50 a day for a vehicle that does not meet the standards.

The Congestion Charge does not reach Kensington and Chelsea. The Western Extension, which covered this borough from 2007, was removed on 4 January 2011. The zone’s western boundary has sat at Edgware Road, Park Lane and Vauxhall Bridge Road ever since. You start paying when you drive east of those roads, not when you leave home.

If you do cross into the zone, the charge rose on 2 January 2026 and is now £18 a day paid on the day or in advance, or £21 if you pay by midnight on the third day after. It runs 07:00 to 18:00 Monday to Friday and 12:00 to 18:00 at weekends and on bank holidays, with no charge between Christmas Day and the New Year’s Day bank holiday.

Getting around without the car

Given the permit costs, the Westway restriction and the Albert Bridge closure, the Underground is doing more work than usual in this borough. Most of Kensington and Chelsea is in zone 1, where a single costs £3.10 at peak and the daily cap is £8.90. The tube and fares page has the zone for every station in the borough and typical journey times.

Frequently asked questions

Is the A40 Westway closed?

Eastbound, yes, until 5am on Monday 5 October 2026, between the Westway Roundabout and the Marylebone Flyover, with a signed diversion. Westbound is open on two of its three lanes, a restriction TfL’s register runs to 5 December 2026. Full westbound weekend closures follow from 10pm on Friday 23 October and 10pm on Friday 30 October.

Why is the Westway restricted at all?

A double decker electric bus was destroyed by fire at the bus garage on Great Western Road, Westbourne Park, on the evening of 24 June 2026. The road above was closed for inspection. TfL says one westbound lane remains closed “while we continue extensive structural inspections to make sure the flyover is safe to use”.

Which roads are closed in Kensington this week?

The A40 Westway eastbound to 5am on 5 October. Penywern Road at Warwick Road to 6 October and Cranley Gardens at numbers 8 to 11 to 7 October, both emergency Thames Water work. Aubrey Walk at Aubrey Road to 9 October. Paultons Street and Draycott Avenue on 6 and 7 October. There is also no right turn from Kensington High Street into Campden Hill Road to 11 October.

Is Albert Bridge open?

Not to motor vehicles. It closed on 7 February 2026 after a crack was found in a cast iron component at one of the abutments, and it remains open only to pedestrians and cyclists. The council says it is committed to reopening in 2027 but that it cannot currently give a definitive date.

Why is Albert Bridge taking so long to fix?

The replacement components for an 1873 cast iron bridge have to be specially designed and manufactured, and temporary works have to hold the bridge’s weight while the damaged part comes out. The council is spending up to £8.5 million, construction on the bridge is due to start before Christmas 2026, and it has bid to the Department for Transport Structures Fund, with successful bidders to be announced in autumn 2026.

How much is a resident parking permit in Kensington and Chelsea?

£73 a year for a fully electric car, and £73 plus £1 for every CO2 g/km for everything else. A mid-size petrol car at 150 g/km costs about £223 a year. Pre-Euro 6 diesels pay a £94 surcharge.

Do I have to pay the Congestion Charge to drive in Kensington?

No. The borough has been outside the Congestion Charge zone since the Western Extension was removed in January 2011. ULEZ does apply, at £12.50 a day for a non-compliant vehicle.

Where can I check current roadworks in the borough?

The council publishes a Works and Events Bulletin listing council works, utility works and events on the public highway, updated weekly. It is not exhaustive; the council points to one.network for everything else. TfL’s own traffic status page covers the red routes, including the Westway.

Sources

• Works and Events Bulletin, 1 October 2026, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for every borough closure, footway job, lift, event and date listed above, including the Westminster items the council lists under other authorities’ networks and its own version of the October Westway weekends.
• Traffic status updates, Transport for London for the eastbound closure and its 16 to 19 October wording, and the westbound entry running from 24 June to 5 December 2026, read on 3 October 2026.
• A40 Westway works, Transport for London for the two open westbound lanes, the “no buses are on diversion” line, the structural inspections, the three October weekend closures and the bad weather fallback, read on 3 October 2026, and A40 Westway for the 96,000 vehicles a day figure, the 21 bridge structures, the 1969 to 1970 construction dates and the 2020 speed limit cut.
• Tube line status, Transport for London for the Saturday 3 October service picture.
• Bus fire, Westbourne Park, London Fire Brigade for the 24 June incident, the time of the call, the appliances sent and what was destroyed.
• Albert Bridge repairs, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for the closure, the cause, the £8.5m cost, the September and August progress updates, the temporary works, the Department for Transport Structures Fund bid and the fallback if it fails, read on 3 October 2026.
• Resident parking permit fees and charges, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for permit prices from 1 April 2026, and Annual parking reports for the monthly subscription banner, unchanged when read on 3 October 2026.
• Congestion Charge, Transport for London for the daily rate and hours, and TfL’s 2011 press release on the removal of the Western Extension.

Roadworks dates move, and most of these jobs carry backup dates. Confirm against the council’s current bulletin before planning around any of them.