A1 Beech Hill to Cloghogue - Northern Ireland Roads

The A1 road is a vital route connecting Belfast and Dublin as well as other cities such as Lisburn and Newry. The A1 is already dual-carriageway as far as Loughbrickland (details) and a scheme was nearing completion at time of writing (June 2006) to dual the portion from Loughbrickland to Beech Hill (details). The road is then single-carriageway from Beech Hill, round the existing Newry Bypass to the border. On the south side of Newry work is underway on a dual-carriageway to link from here to the Irish M1 and hence on to Dublin.

This scheme will see the route around Newry dualled to "high quality dual-carriageway" (HQDC) standard which means full grade separation, with a total of five junctions. A HQDC is one designed to motorway standard, but classed as an A-class road. North of Bessbrook it will follow a new cross-country route, while the section to the west and southwest of Newry will roughly follow the line of the existing bypass. See links above for a map of the route, but see also the strip map below.

This map shows that the road is planned to have five grade-separated junctions, spaced approximately 2km apart. These will be at:

	NORTH Begins as standard A1 north of Newry 2+2 lanes
SHEEPBRIDGE		Existing A1 Existing A1 (to Newry)
	3.2 km / 2.0 miles - 2+2 lanes
CARNBANE	Armagh Road .	. Link to Tandragee Road Armagh Road
	1.7 km / 1.1 miles - 2+2 lanes
CAMLOUGH ROAD	Camlough Road	Existing Newry Bypass Camlough Road
	2.0 km / 1.3 miles - 2+2 lanes
CHANCELLOR'S ROAD	New access road	Chancellor's Road
	2.1 km / 1.3 miles - 2+2 lanes
CLOGHOGUE	. Forkhill Road lane drop*	. Dublin Road (to Newry) lane gain*
	1.6 km / 1.0 miles - 3+3 lanes
ELLISHOLDING ROAD (opened Aug 2007)	lane gain* Ellisholding Road (to Meigh) .	lane drop* Dublin Road (Former A1) .
	3.1 km / 1.9 miles - 2+2 lanes
	REPUBLIC OF IRELAND BORDER SOUTH Continues as N1 and then M1 to Dublin

*lane gain: where a sliproad continues as a new lane instead of merging with an existing lane.
lane drop: where one of the road's lanes becomes the off-slip to a junction.

5 May 2008: The Roads Service web site is now ambiguously giving the completion date of the scheme as "winter 2010" which could mean either "Jan/Feb 2010" or "Dec 2010" depending on which winter they mean. The duration of the project was estimated as two years in 2007. Since work actually began in Dec 2007, if the completion date means "Jan/Feb 2010" then the scheme is still on schedule. If however it means "Dec 2010" then this represents a substantial delay in completion of the scheme. The Roads Service web site is also still quoting the outdated cost of "£109m" when the actual figure was confirmed to be in excess of £150m two months ago.

14 Apr 2008: The problems of February seem to have been overcome in that work is progressing once again. Site visitor Alan Mannis provided photos of the works adjacent to the existing Newry Bypass (ie the south half of the scheme) as they appeared in early March showing that substantial earthworks are underway all along the route. Other visitors have reported that earthworks on the "offline" section north of Newry are also progressing well. As yet, no recognisable elements of the new road have appeared - understandable since opening is almost two years away.

Earthworks beside the existing A1 Newry Bypass near Cloghogue in early April 2008. [Alan Mannis]

The enormous route corridor of the future dual-carriagway crossing the path of the existing A1 Newry Bypass near Camlough Road in early April 2008. [Alan Mannis]

3 Mar 2008: The cost of the scheme is now confirmed to be £152m. This is a considerable cost increase over the £109m quoted in 2006 and may be partly explained by rises in land values.

13 Feb 2008: Today it emerged that the contractors stopped work on the site at the end of December, and that NO WORK has taken place in the six weeks since. Roads Service say that while topsoil was being removed, potential archaeological remains have been uncovered. The contractor is now said to be negotiating with the Environment and Heritage Service to discern the next step. Local politicans are extremely unhappy at the situation.

1 Feb 2008: The Roads Service is now listing this scheme as "underway" so we must assume that the contract has officially begun. As advanced works have been underway for almost a year, however, we really don't have a specific start date. The estimated duration of the scheme is two years, so completion is expected in early 2010. As noted under costs below, the cost of the scheme seems to have risen, perhaps to £132m due to rising land costs.

22 Dec 2007: The contract for the scheme has now been signed - according to this press release it happened on 17 December. This means that work may well get underway in January. Since the completion date of "late 2009" was dependent on the project beginning in "Oct 2007", a delay of 3 months means that completion is now likely in early 2010.

16 Dec 2007: Although site clearance works are well underway (see photos below) the main contract has not yet begun, despite Roads Service saying that work would begin in October. The reason for this delay, which is frustrating road users on the A1, is unclear.

27 Sep 2007: Advanced site clearance work, prior to the bird nesting season, took place in Spring 2007. Roads Service are now saying that the main contract will begin in October 2007, with completion due in "late 2009". They have also released a map, linked to at the top of the page as well as here.

29 March 2007: Advanced site clearance works have been underway for a number of weeks now, with the main contract due to follow it.

This element of the A1 is being privately funded as part of the "DBFO2" (a PPP scheme) which also includes the provision of four grade-separated junctions on the A1, the dualling of the A4 from Ballygawley to Dungannon, and realignments of the A4 at Annaghilla and the A5 at Tullyvar.

Many had thought that the existing Newry Bypass would be dualled since it was itself only completed in 1996. However Roads Service have instead settled on a new route for the northern half of the Bypass which will effectively convert the northern part of the existing Newry Bypass into a local distributor road.

The scheme has attracted considerable local controversy, not least because the fully grade-separated junctions will limit local traffic movements and there is a fear that this will lead to long detours. On the other hand, there are those who see a grade-separated dual-carriageway as too much of a compromise, and want to see a full motorway to match the standard of the route south of the border.

This public consultation in July 2006 gave the cost of the scheme as £109m. However, this press release in February 2008 stated that the cost had risen by an amazing 39% to £152m. This can at least be partly explained by this statement to the Assembly in January 2008, when the Finance Minister stated that he was granting "£22.7million to the Department for Regional Development to meet the increased land costs associated with the A1 Beechhill to Cloghogue scheme and to allow the completion of the Newry / Dundalk scheme." The Regional Strategic Transport Plan estimated the cost of the project at £99.2m, more than the £87m being quoted by the Roads Service in 2005. The scheme is now costing almost double what was estimated just three years before work began.

Preliminary site works underway for the new road near Cloghanramer Road, to the north west of Newry in early November 2007. [Photo by Aubrey Dale]

This computer-generated impression of the new route shows the Carnbane interchange looking south, here shown as a dumbbell junction (ie with just one bridge and two roundabouts). It was published in the Roads Service's "On The Move" magazine, issue 6 (Summer 2006).