| A2 Shore Road at Greenisland - widening | ||||||||||||||
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The A2 Shore Road forms the route from the end of the M5 all the way to Carrickfergus, taking it through the commuter suburbs of Whiteabbey, Jordanstown and the village of Greenisland. A short section at the Whiteabbey end and a section near Carrickfergus are dual-carriageway, while most of the rest is 4-lane single-carriageway. The exception is the short section through Greenisland village which is 2-lane single carriageway. This is a serious bottleneck and causes huge delays and much stress every day for the vehicles which travel along the route (26,000 per day north of Greenisland; 35,000 south of Greenisland). The new road will follow the route shown in the below map (the other two options were rejected). For those who are interested, the Roads Service have more detailed maps here.
Map of proposals (southern end) released to the public in March 2007.
Map of proposals (northern end) released to the public in March 2007. The road will be built to dual-carriageway standard with two lanes each way. There will be four roundabouts, the first three of which will be signalised:
At all other junctions, drivers will be required to turn left only and use the next roundabout along to turn round if they wished to turn right. An exception will be made at Station Road to allow buses only to turn right into the former Shore Road from the new road. For completeness, the three options considered before the decision was made were:
With thanks to Shane McKee for a correction to the above information. Progress 13 Mar 2012:
Following February's announcement, Roads Service
have lost little time putting this scheme out to
tender. The tendering process will be done in two
stages. The initial stage is just to compile a
list of companies that Roads Service are confident
could do
the work. The second stage will be the formal
tender, where one contractor will be selected. The
advertisement
for the initial stage went live on 1 March,
and the selected companies will be notified on 11
June 2012. This will then be followed by the
second stage, which ought to see a final
contractor selected before the end of 2012, with
work to begin on the ground early in 2013. The
scheme has already passed its public inquiry and
is good to go - it is only the necessity to go
through this tendering process that means work
can't begin straight away. (This problem does not
affect the A5 and A8 schemes since they were done
differently, with the contractors appointed during
the design stage). 14 Feb 2012:
Today saw a major
announcement about how the money freed up by
Dublin's postponement of money for the A5. Perhaps
the least-surprising element is that this scheme
will now go ahead. It was within days of going out
to tender in January 2011 when it was put on hold.
As a relatively cheap scheme (compared to the A5,
A6 and A8) it was the most obvious scheme to get
the go ahead, and this is what has happened. The
scheme has already passed its Public Inquiry (held
in 2007), so that is not an obstacle. However the
procurement process (to appoint a contractor) has
not happened, so this will take some months. This
is probably the reason that the scheme is now due
to go to ground "early in 2013". With an estimated
timescale of two years, this means that the road
could be complete and in use by Spring 2015. The
people of Carrickfergus will be celebrating
tonight. In terms of cost, the DRD
press release gives the cost as vaguely between
"£50m-60m", whereas the OFMDFM
press release gives it more specifically at
£57m. The latter figure is very close to the
figure of £55.2m previously quoted by DRD,
so I am assuming it is correct. 12 November 2011: Last Wednesday's announcement that the Irish government was delaying its promised £400m towards the A5 means that the A5 now cannot proceed on the timescale envisaged, ie before 2016. This has created confusion as to how Stormont's cash that has suddenly been released should be spent. There are lots of road schemes in planning, but due to the length of time the legal processes take, only four schemes could proceed in the near future. These are the ones that have had their public inquiries and are:
5 June 2011: This scheme was the subject of an "adjournment debate" in Stormont (the first of the newly elected Assembly) which was held on 30th May. During this various politicians from East Antrim and further afield expressed their dissatisfaction with the sudden halt that was called to this scheme in January. In particular they highlight the problem of blight. Under blight legislation (designed to prevent people being stuck with an un-sellable house for years and years) Roads Service had already bought 25 properties and some of these have been demolished. During the debate the new "Roads" Minister Danny Kennedy explained in some detail: "Consultations with affected landowners to finalise and agree accommodation works were also substantially completed in 2010. My Department is, therefore, in a position to complete the final statutory vesting order as soon as finance becomes available. The compulsory purchase of land for the scheme is currently valued at £17 million. My Department’s Road Service has acquired 25 residential properties under blight legislation. A number of those properties have been demolished in order that they do not become derelict and vandalised. Any surplus land or property not required for the scheme will be declared surplus and disposed of on the open market. That is normally carried out upon completion of the scheme. However, my Department’s Road Service is considering early disposal of some properties in order to minimise security and maintenance issues associated with them. In the meantime, every effort is being made to secure and maintain all acquired properties." While the new Minister has committed to reviewing the A5 scheme once the public inquiry has reported, he has not offered any immediate hope for this scheme. All he said was: "Schemes such as the A2 Shore Road tend to take more than one year in construction, and funding in year 5, and possibly beyond, would be required before I could give approval for construction to commence. The funding in those years will not become clearer until further work has been completed to develop the third edition of the investment strategy for Northern Ireland, which, I understand, is due to conclude later this year." So it's a case of "watch this space". 14 May 2011: On Friday the d'Hondt system of sharing Ministries in the newly convened Northern Ireland Assembly resulted in the Department for Regional Development Ministry (which includes roads) falling to the Ulster Unionist Party (previously it was held by Sinn Fein's Conor Murphy). Of relevance to this scheme is that the UUP election manifesto included a committment to "advocate a refocusing on the need to commission the A2 project at Greenisland, rather than the A5 Western Transport Corridor" (UUP 2011 manifesto). This does not mean that there will be an overnight change to the timing of this scheme, but it does suggest that the incoming minister will be more sympathetic to the need for this scheme than the outgoing one. 14 Jan 2011: In a Roads Service Board meeting on 30 November 2010 it was revealed that the initial pre-qualification tender process (which chooses which companies will be allowed to tender for construction) has now been completed. At the same meeting the Board "granted approval for tender documents to be released" which basically meant that the scheme was ready for construction. However, yesterday the DRD (which includes Roads Service) published their budget for the period 2011-2015 and this has revealed that due to lack of money this scheme has now been put on hold, seemingly until at least 2015. This is very sad news for the scheme, given that it has been planned for decades and was probably only months away from commencing. 11 Sep 2010: Roads Service are keeping their cards close to their chest in terms of when this scheme might go ahead (see previous update). However I note that they have just released the initial tender for this scheme. This initial tender is to allow interested engineering firms to bid to be included in the more complicated tender which could be released in a few month's time. This two-stage process ensures that only those firms who have a chance of winning the tender can actually tender for it. This clue suggests that construction may indeed be getting underway in the near future. 21 Jun 2010: Over the past year not much has happened on this scheme. A geotechnical investigation was carried out in 2009 (exploring the type ground the road will be built on) and an archaeological survey began at the end of April, focusing on Castle Lug - the medieval tower house that lies close to the Shore Road. There has been speculation in the media that the scheme is going to be delayed. This has been confirmed to an extend by Roads Service who are now saying merely that "The start date for this scheme will depend upon the availability of funding in future years". This effectively means that Roads Service no longer knows when this scheme will be built. In a debate in the Assembly on 8th June, the DRD Minister said "If the finances are available, delivery is expected to start in 2011-12, and the project should be completed in 2013." However this seems increasingly unlikely to happen as the financial situation deteriorates. 16 Jun 2009: The Regional Development Minister provided an update on this scheme in the Assembly on 5th June. The Geotechnical Investigation (looking at ground conditions on the proposed route) was carried out from January to June 2009. Archaeological work is due to be carried out during the Autumn of 2009. The timescale has not really changed - subject to the availability of funding (not a certainty these days) it is planned to commence in 2010/11 and be completed "by the end of the 2012/13 financial year", ie by April 2013. 24 Nov 2008: The press release issued 7 weeks ago (see previous update) suggested that work would begin in 2010 or 11. When Roads Service met with Carrickfergus Borough Council on 10 November this was revised to 2011 at the earliest, as reported by The Carrick Times. It quotes a Roads Service spokesperson as saying that "With a fair wind, construction will commence in 2011." and "We are pushing this forward as vigorously as we can; the slow bit has been the statutory procedure, as a result of the objections we received. Schemes compete and are subject to availability of funding, but it is of the highest priority within the eastern division." The vesting order is due to be published during 2009 with the project put out to tender in 2010. This will lead, if there are no problems, to work on the ground commencing in 2011 and lasting about two years. 2 Oct 2008: Roads Service's response to the public inquiry was published on 30th September. It did not say anything earth shattering, and committed to proceeding with the scheme largely as proposed. The documents, available here, outline Roads Service's response to the main concerns of the inspector (of the public inquiry). These include a slight realignment at Langley Hall to avoid vesting land from properties that were only constructed very recently and whose location had received approval from Roads Service at the time. It also modifies access to Belfast High School which will now consist of a one-way system accessed to and from the new road directly, and the relocation of the pedestrian crossing. However, a layby on the citybound carriageway has been rejected on the grounds of safety and cost/benefit analysis. The criticism that the "online" nature of part of the scheme would not allow for future road improvements on the road was rejected by Roads Service on the grounds that no specific improvements were currently proposed. This viewpoint is in contrast to the approach taken in the 1970s, when many roads were constructed with additional capacity for future improvements (eg M2 between j4 and j5). The accompanying press release confirmed that work is scheduled to get underway in 2010/11 and last about two years. 22 Sep 2008: According to the Regional Development Minister, the results of the public inquiry into the scheme are expected to be published in October 2008. 28 Apr 2008: According to the strategy document "Investment Delivery Plan for Roads" of April 2008, the start date for this scheme has been pushed back from 2008/09 to 2010/11 with completion due 2012/13. This delay is probably due to cash shortages caused by the promotion of schemes on the A5 and A6 corridors, but will be disappointing new for Carrickfergus commuters. 17 Nov 2007: In this press release from October 2007, the cost was given as £55.2m. This is another substantial rise in costs. The scheme was included in the Draft Belfast Metropolitan Area Plan in 2004 at an estimated cost of £21m. By March 2006 the cost had been revised and had doubled to £41m. The further rise of about 30% over the past year and a half probably reflects refinements in the design and rises in property values. In the design currently proposed, Greenisland's medieval tower hosue, known as Cloch-na-Larty will survive the scheme but will lose some of the open land in front of it. Design of the New Road The exact design of the road will depend on the location. The "offline" section would see the road built to rural dual-carriageway standard with a total width of 27 metres. The "online" section would reduce this to 22 metres to ease the impact on properties. Local traffic will only be permitted to turn left on and off the road except for a few key junctions. People who wish to turn right from driveways will turn left and then turn round at the next junction. The junctions will all be traffic-light-controlled roundabouts which perform better than the more basic priority roundabouts when the main flow of traffic is "straight on". The road will have a 40mph speed limit. Other options such as building the offline option in a cutting to reduce noise were rejected as they would require even more land. Possibilities of building the road through the grounds of the University of Ulster and through the sea on a causeway were also rejected. A person who lives on the route told me that the Roads Service had in years gone by explored the idea of building the road on the sea side by reclaiming the beach, but that this idea was abandoned after uproar from the residents. This was tried in Whiteabbey, where the A2 was moved onto the beach, and it has had a very negative effect on the shoreline area. Widening the A2 through Greenisland is also destructive, and so most of the residents seem to prefer the inland option which would re-route the road about 200 metres inland and leave the Shore Road intact. The Public Inquiry is likely to be a lively affair. Photos
Part of the daily evening traffic jam on the 2 lane section of the A2 approaching Greenisland. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]
At the centre of the village, the number of mature trees and large houses close to the road is apparent. This picture was taken in winter when the trees were bare, but the road looks well in summer. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]
The A2 running through the centre of Greenisland village. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]
Another view of the A2, looking back to Belfast showing the houses at the shore. More recent housing developments, such as the one off frame to the right, were built with the widening in mind, as you can see from the wide grass verge. [Photo by Wesley Johnston] |
