WORK is due to get underway next week on the £500,000 scheme to provide a new pedestrian and cycle subway underneath the main Plymouth road by Tavistock Primary School.

The project is intended to provide a safe route to school for students of the primary school and Tavistock College, linking to route 27 of the national cycle network between north and south Devon.

Joe Flynn, headteacher at Tavistock Primary, said: 'There will be a bit of disruption, but it will be well worth it in the end — we are really looking forward to it being done.'

Mr Flynn said footpaths would need to be rerouted in the area while work was being carried out and a newsletter was being sent to children and parents warning them to pay special heed to the signs.

'It's going to be quite a long project,' said Mr Flynn. 'We have agreed with the contractors that when they are doing anything particularly interesting we will be able to take the children out to look at it safely.'

Mr Flynn said he hoped artwork, to be carried out by youngsters at both schools, could be incorporated into the subway, engendering a sense of ownership in the structure.

'It would be nice to think that four-year-olds, when they go through it at 18, could look at it and say, "I designed that bit",' said Mr Flynn, who was also keeping his fingers crossed that a bid for funding for bicycle sheds at the school would be successful.

'I've got space allocated for them, I know what I want to do, as soon as the money comes through,' he said.

John Simes, principal of Tavistock College, said: 'It's a very exciting development. It gives us a real prospect of reducing the number of vehicles that come onto the school site as ideally, we'd like to separate students from cars as soon as possible.

'In terms of health, and safe journeys into the college, it's a tremendous step forward.'

Mr Simes said the college had been kept 'very well informed' of the project so far and he hoped work connected with the subway would be carried out by the students as part of their studies this year.

The subway will be built in two stages by Web Construction Ltd, of Exeter, starting on Monday.

Its construction represents a big challenge for Devon County Council engineers. Many service cables and pipes run under the main road which will be exposed by the work.

The cables will be supported on steel beams allowing space to excavate the underpass.

Two-way traffic can be maintained on the road for the majority of the work — but there will be restricted periods when only one lane of the road will be open.

A Devon County Council spokesman said there would only be two occasions on which the road would be reduced to one lane and the authority was aware of the need to keep traffic flowing during Goose Fair.

Once the underpass has been completed, the puffin crossing, which can cause traffic jams at the beginning and end of the school day, will be removed.

The subway will link to a new cycle path to be built parallel to Tavistock Canal, travelling along the boundary of the two schools. It will cross the River Tavy at Crowndale using a reclaimed, listed road bridge.

Eventually, the route will connect with the existing cycle route from Plymouth to Clearbrook.