The road will be closed from the junction with the A350 to the B3074

The A31 near Corfe Mullen will be completely closed to traffic from Friday evening until Sunday evening.

The 1.7-mile (2.7km) stretch of road has already been closed to motorists overnight from Mondays to Thursdays for the past two weeks.

The weekend closure is the second of four planned by the Highways Agency for work to improve flooding problems.

The others are planned for the weekends of 30 September to 2 October and 7 October to 9 October.

'Time-consuming work'

The overnight closures are due to last approximately another six weeks.

The stretch of road affected is from the junction of the A350 to the B3074.

Peter Scott, Highways Agency project sponsor, said it was necessary to close the road.

"We have to carry out this time-consuming deep reconstruction and thick resurfacing work over the weekends because we need enough time to complete the work before the road can be safely reopened for motorists to use," he said.