| A6 Dualling Dungiven to Londonderry | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This major project was announced on 13 December 2005 by the Northern Ireland Secretary of State Peter Hain as part of a larger investment package for the city of Derry. It will see a dual-carriageway bypass of Dungiven town and dualling of the existing A6 from there to the A2 on the north-eastern periphery of Derry city. The road will be build to a high quality with two lanes each way, no breaks in the central barrier and fully grade separated junctions (ie flyovers). Plans announced in 2004 for a single-carriageway bypass of Dungiven at a cost of £11.1m have been subsumed by this much larger scheme, although the preliminary work done will still apply. As of 2008 the scheme was listed in Roads Service's "preparation pool", meaning commencement is anticipated "within 5 years". The map below shows the section of the A6 affected by this upgrade.
Route The chosen route closely follows the existing A6, except that it bypasses Drumahoe well to the north at the Derry end, and bypasses Dungiven to the south. In May 2009 Roads Service published maps showing the chosen route. The maps are (as of May 2009) available from the following links:
Roads Service have put an enormous amount of information on their web site about this scheme (see link at top of page). It includes the 2004 report into the single-carriageway Dungiven Bypass then proposed. It also includes the 2007 report into dualling the entire A6 route from Castledawson to Derry. The current scheme is based on portions of both of these. Strip Junction Map This is a strip map of the design that was published in May 2009. Note that the design may change between this map and construction due to the evolution of the design, and the public inquiry.
Updates 16 Feb 2010: According to the Minister in the Assembly on 8 Feb 2010, design work is continuing and Roads Service hope to publish the draft Direction Order (basically the legal document giving permission to build a new main road) and the draft Vesting Order (the legal document needed to buy the land to build the road) "before the end of of 2010". The cost was re-stated, and has not changed, at £320m-£390m. 18 Jan 2010: The terminus of the new road at the Derry end will require changes to the A2 Clooney Road, mainly involving improving the alignment and standard, and removing one roundabout. A public exhibition of what is proposed will take place at The North West Teachers Centre, 24 Temple Road, Strathfoyle on Tuesday 19th January 5pm-9pm and Wednesday 20th January 1pm-9pm. I would encourage all those with an interest in the scheme to turn up as this is one of the main ways that the public can engage with the planners. 7 Jan 2010: According to a Written Answer in the Assembly in late December 2009, the current estimate of the cost of this scheme has risen to "£320m to £390m" which is a further increase on the "£320m" estimated in December 2008. 6 May 2009: The Minister announced the preferred route today. The new road will be built to dual-two lane standard, with 1 metre hard strips and no central reserve crossings. Starting at a new roundabout east of Dungiven, it will bypass Dungiven to the south before following an offline route for the first 10km. It will then join the existing A6 where it will be an online upgrade past Claudy until close to Drumahoe. It then heads cross country again to the north to join the existing A2 road at a new roundabout at Gransha. This is quite far north, so we could expect a large percentage of motorists will elect to leave the road at Drumahoe and use the existing A6 past Altnagelvin rather than go all the way up to Gransha. All seven intermediate junctions will be grade separated - six with a "compact" design and one (Drumahoe) with a larger layout. There may also be a westbound left-in/left-out junction at Burntollet, but the Road Service map is not clear enough to determine if this is true. I have put an approximate version of the route onto a Google Maps overlay, seen by clicking here. The press are reporting that construction will start in 2012 and last until 2016, but this is not stated in the Roads Service material. The official position late last year was construction commencing in 2013 subject to the availability of funding. 27 April 2009: Roads Service have said that the preferred route will be announced in early May, and details will be on display to the public at the following locations and dates:
All those with an interest in the scheme should be urged to turn up, as this is one of the key meetings to have your questions answered and raise any concerns. Representatives from Roads Service and the design company will be there. 16 Dec 2008: According to a Stormont Assembly written answer last week, the estimated cost of the scheme has now risen to £320m. It confirms that the preferred route is due to be announced in the Spring of 2009 and again tentatively suggests commencement may be around 2012/13. 10 Dec 2008: Roads Service published a 4-page leaflet on the scheme last month. It does not contain any new information, but confirms the timescale previously announced and provides a useful summary of the scheme. 21 Oct 2008: According to an Assembly written answer from 17 October, the scheme is still on schedule for commencement "during the 2012/13 financial year". The answer also states that the Dungiven Bypass portion of the scheme will take about 18 months to complete. There have been hints that this part of the scheme may progress early on in the scheme to ensure that it is open as soon as possible. 15 Jun 2008: According to this press release, the cost of the project has risen to £300m (up from £250m estimated in 2005). It also revealed that the preferred route is due to be announced in the summer of 2009 and that "over 100 people" are involved in the route development in one form or another. The press release has also said that Roads Service are now investigating how to provide a link from the A6 at Drumahoe to the A5 on the south side of the city. Such a link would almost certainly follow a new offline route. It is unclear if this link would be part of this scheme, or be a separate project. 24 May 2008: Roads Service are holding a series of public exhibitions between 20 and 28 May. They are using these to reveal the five chosen route corridors. Interestingly, some of these stray OUTSIDE the route corridor announced last year and thus there is now an "expanded" route corridor. At the Derry end it now looks almost certain that the road will tie in to the existing A2 between Caw and Maydown rather than the Crescent Link itself. At the Dungiven end two new routes for the bypass of the town are being considered, after complaints about the current route that will sever a GAA training ground. One of these passes further to the south, beyond the river, while the other passes to the north of the town. All the documents made available on the days are also online here, including more detailed versions of the above maps. 28 Apr 2008: The publication in April 2008 of the "Investment Delivery Plan for Roads" document has allayed fears that the scheme will be delayed, since it includes this scheme in the "Preparation pool" which contains schemes anticipated to begin within 5 years, ie by 2013. 8 Mar 2008: According to Roads Service, ground surveys on the chosen route corridor are underway. This will inform the decision on a preferred route within this corridor. Roads Service still have the scheme in their "preparation pool" (construction anticipated within 5 years or so) but with the recent announcements by Conor Murphy (see previous updates) it's still unclear what the timescale is. 5 Feb 2008: Conor Murphy has again denied that there is any slippage in the timetable for the project. He said that "it is not correct to state that there has been slippage on the A6 Derry to Dungiven project. Indeed in July 2007 I announced the appointment of consultants to examine options to enable the selection of a preferred route by spring 2009". There is no doubt that this is true, but it only refers to the first element of the project. The "slippage" being noted is in the timescale for completion of the project as a whole. When first announced,Roads Service were saying that the scheme would be delivered within the timetable of the Regional Strategic Transport Plan which ran from 2005-2015. Now, they are saying that it's going to be delivered within the timetable of the Investment Strategy 2008-2018. While it's only a time period, it still has the potential to delay the project by up to three years. 30 Dec 2007: Conor Murphy responded to the media reports last week by assuring business leaders that the scheme has NOT been cancelled and will proceed. However, while reassuring, his statement does seem to be a disguised attempt to sneak a revised timescale through. When the scheme was first announced in 2005, it was stated that it would be built within the timescale of the Regional Strategic Transportation Network Transport Plan 2015, ie by 2015. However in this week's statement, Conor Murphy now says that it will be built within the timescale of the draft Investment Strategy 2008-2018, ie by 2018. This subtle change means that the project could potentially be delayed by up to three years. This would seem inevitable give the level of financial committment required for the A5 dualling scheme. 24 Dec 2007: As has been noted by the media, this scheme is mysteriously missing from the Draft Investment Strategy 2008-2018 which was published in October. This Strategy (admittedly a draft) outlines the targets of spending of £3bn on roads over the next ten years. Under its list of "key milestones" it lists the A4 dualling scheme (Dungannon to Ballygawley), completion of the A1 dualling, completion of the M1, M2 and Westlink upgrades, the recently announced A5 dualling scheme (Londonderry to Aughnacloy) and the A8 dualling scheme (to Larne). However there is no mention of the A6 dualling scheme. According to Derry Chamber of Commerce, the DRD has said that the A6 scheme may be put on hold or delayed. This is speculation, but it is worth noting that the shortfall required in order to undertake the A5 dualling scheme is £260m. This is almost the same amount as the cost of this scheme. So it is possible that the Regional Development Minister Conor Murphy has decided to take the money from this scheme and use it to fund the A5 scheme instead. If so, and it is only guesswork, then it is likely to prompt a lot of debate on the subject. Background to Scheme The Regional Strategic Transport Plan, published in 2004, explained why it was thought that further dualling of the 40km of the A6 beyond Castledawson could not go ahead before 2015:
This lack of funding was rectified suddenly and somewhat unexpectedly in December 2005 by the announcement of sufficient funding for the Dungiven to Derry section. Prophetically, the RSTN did comment that "It is... likely that future dualling in the 2015 to 2025 period will commence at the Londonderry end of the route." This is because traffic levels are highest at the Toome and Derry ends of the A6, and lowest at the Glenshane Pass and because of the difficult terrain crossing the Sperrins. Traffic figures collected in 2004 showed the following daily traffic at various points on the A6:
Thanks to Diarmaid Elder for the traffic information on this page. Photos
A typical view of the A6 road in its current form, here seen near Dungiven. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]
Dungiven town centre is the biggest bottleneck on the route, and will get a bypass. [Photo by Wesley Johnston] Lots more photos of the road are available on the Roads Service web site - see link at the top of this page. |
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