| A28 Armagh East Link | ||||||||||||||
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The Armagh East Link is proposed to connect the main A28 route (from Armagh to Newry and Dublin) to the main A3 route (from Armagh to Portadown and Belfast) without having to go into the city centre. It complements the Armagh North and West Link which is in a more advanced stage of planning - see link above. Construction of the scheme is not anticipated in the short term at the time of writing (April 2012) but work is progressing well. Route The route uses existing roads in two places - the Ardmore Road in the south and part of Hamiltonsbawn Road Industrial Estate in the north. Click here for a PDF map of the proposed route, as published by Roads Service in March 2007. (Please let me know if this link does not work). The official Roads Service description of the route is as follows: "The Armagh East Link will run from the A28
Markethill Road in the south to the A3 Portadown
Road in the north, incorporating an improved
junction with the A51 Hamilstonsbawn Road. The
existing junction of A28 Markethill Road and
Ardmore Road will be improved and the existing
road corridor through the Ardmore housing estate
will become part of the southern section of the
East Link. The route will continue northwards to
the rear of the existing residential properties
at Bannvale Villas until it meets the A51 at the
Hamiltonsbawn Road industrial estate. A new
junction will incorporate the existing access to
the industrial units. The link will utilise this
existing access road and continue along the
eastern side of the Drumadd Barracks and emerge
at a new junction with the A3 Portadown Road, to
the west of the existing Linseys Hill junction." Updates 22 April 2012: The DRD web site is now also saying that the Stage 2 Assessment Report was approved by the Roads Service board on 5 March 2012, although neither the minutes nor the report itself have been published online yet. This comes just four months after the Stage 1 Report was approved, even though nothing much had happened on this scheme for the prior six years. All the signs are that this scheme is being pushed up the schedule for an unknown reason - perhaps with Roads Service under pressure to spend the money reallocated from the A5 scheme, they are casting about for schemes that could go ahead at relatively short notice to spend the money. Perhaps they are anticipating that this scheme will not require a Public Inquiry.6 April 2012: According to the Minutes of a Roads Service board meeting held in November 2011 (but just published), this scheme was given "Gateway 0 Approval" in mid November last year. The text is worth quoting in full: "noted, on 14 November 2011, the approval of the Stage 1 report for Armagh East Link and granted Gateway 0 approval noting the estimated cost of £24.6 million and that potentially the scheme could be delivered within the current Budget period". The Stage 1 report that is referred to is now available on the Roads Service web site here. However this document was written in August 2006, ie six years ago. This implies that the scheme has been sitting on hold for all of this time but has now finally been approved. "Gateway 0" approval means that the scheme has passed its "Strategic Assessment", ie it has been approved in principle, but that the detailed design work has yet to take place. The cost of £24.6m is over four times more than the figure of £6m given in the document "Expanding the Strategic Road Improvement Programme" published in November 2006, and three times the cost of £7.6m given in the Stage 1 Assessment Report. The reason for this huge cost escalation is not clear. In terms of timescale, Roads Service are officially saying that it is timed for construction within "5 to 10 years". In practice this is what they say about almost every scheme in the forward planning schedule. However the comment in the minutes that it "could be delivered within the current Budget period" is interesting, since the "current budget period" only takes us up to around 2015. We shall have to watch this space to see what this might mean. |