A6 Dualling - Randalstown (M22) to Castledawson

The A6 is single-carriageway from the end of the M22 at Randalstown, to Derry. The most notorious bottleneck, the village of Toome, received a dual-carriageway bypass in 2004. However the roads on each side are still single-carriageway. The purpose of this scheme is to dual approximately 12km of the A6 from the M22 to the start of the Toome Bypass, and from the end of the Toome Bypass as far as Castledawson. In keeping with recent schemes, the two new stretches of dual-carriageway will be of a high quality with flyover junctions and no breaks in the central reservation. Traffic levels on the route vary from 12,000 vehicles per day at Castledawson to 17,500 per day at the M22 end.

The existing Toome Bypass will to have been upgraded as part of the scheme with both roundabouts removed, and the Hillhead Road T-junction west of Toome will be closed. As of late 2010 this decision has been reversed, so both roundabouts will remain (Roguery Road will be enlarged) although the Hillhead Road T-junction will still be closed.

Roads Service have detailed maps on their web site showing the junctions between the M22 and Toome and between Toome and Castledawson. The more general map below was released to the press by the Roads Service in September 2005. It shows the western part of the scheme at the top, and the eastern portion at the bottom. The recently completed Toome Bypass has been added in black. Individual junctions are not shown.

ABOVE: Original design proposed but rejected at 2007 Public Inquiry.

ABOVE: Revised design submitted at 2012 Public Inquiry but again rejected

ABOVE: Inspector's recommended design as of 2013, which is yet to go through the planning process. (You can see the latter two maps in more detail at the end of this document.)

The original grand motorway plan of 1964 would have seen the M22 extend from Antrim past Toome and terminating at Castledawson. (Londonderry traffic would have followed the M2 as far as Ballymoney and then taken the proposed M23 to the city). When this scheme got abandoned in 1975, the M22 had not even made it as far as Toome and it left the single-carriageway A6 as the most direct route to Londonderry. It has been in this state for the intervening 30 years with the narrow and twisty section from the M22 to Toome one of the poorest standard trunk roads in Northern Ireland.

See also route map above. This is a strip map of the design that is being proposed as of January 2012. The existing Toome Bypass is highlighted in yellow, showing its proposed upgrades.

1 May 2013: Further to my update of three days ago, the DRD Minister said in the Assembly yesterday that progression of this scheme will NOT be delayed by the ongoing work to finalise the design for the troublesome Bellshill Road and Annaghmore Road junction, near Castledawson. His actual words were "My officials are examining a further junction layout following the inspector’s rejection of the alternative, which was examined at a public inquiry in February 2012. Officials intend to submit a planning application within the next month. The Castledawson junction would not delay progression of the main scheme." This is a very significant point, since without the need to wait to get this junction finalised, this scheme must surely jump to the top of the list of possible road schemes to be progressed with the money freed up by the 12-18 month delay to the A5 project. I am not a betting man, but if I were this would be the scheme I would put my money on as the most likely to go ahead in the very near future. Having said all that, it's not clear to me exactly why the junction design would not delay the project, since its construction will, by default, involve sealing off access to these two local roads and so some kind of new junction will have to be built. Perhaps the hope is that the scheme can begin on the assumption that the junction design will be finalised part way through the procurement or construction phase and then be completed as a latter part of the work.

28 April 2013: The DRD has now confirmed that they will be putting in a planning application for their third attempt at the Bellshill Road and Annaghmore Road junction, near Castledawson (see previous update) during May. With the A5 project now on hold for at least a year, and the DRD minister actively looking for other projects to spend his money on, it seems sensible to resolve what is now the only outstanding issue with the A6 scheme as quickly as possible in case there is an opportunity to proceed with this scheme. However, it is possible that the revised planning application may lead to yet another public inquiry, in which case we could still be a year or more away from having the issue with this junction resolved.

27 January 2013: As it's been a year since the last update, a quick recap seems in order. Firstly, the proposed dual-carriageway went to Public Inquiry in 2007. The Inspector recommended that the road go ahead. However, he also recommended that the design of the connections to Bellshill Road and Annaghmore Road, near Castledawson, be revisited as they were not acceptable in their designed form. The issue was primarily the impact of both the access arrangements and the physical impact on houses and farms on these two roads. The DRD then went back to the drawing board and came up with 5 alternative options, which were published in January 2011. One of these was selected and brought forward as a replacement proposal. However, 25 letters of objection were received along with 5 petitions. A Public Inquiry was held into the revised design in February 2012, and the Inspector's Report was finally published last week. The result was a setback for the scheme, since the Inspector has rejected the revised design! The DRD has accepted this recommendation and agreed to go back and have yet another look at the design. This means a potential further delay to the project, since DRD will now have to apply for planning permission again, not to mention the possibility of a further Public Inquiry if this third design also receives significant objections. This third design seems likely to be based on an option recommended by the Inspector at the 2012 Public Inquiry. I have included maps of all three designs - from 2007 to present - above. Due to this latest delay, it now seems unlikely that this scheme could progress to construction in the near future (ie, 2-3 year timeframe). However, since this scheme is arguably one of the most badly needed of all planned road schemes in Northern Ireland we can only hope that a satisfactory solution to this issue is found soon.

14 February 2012: Today saw a major funding announcement with the money that had previously been earmarked for the A5 scheme being reallocated for the next four years. The Minister had a limited pot of cash to allocate, but the main surprise for me is that this scheme has not been given the go-ahead for construction in the next four years. As I said in November's update, this was one of the few schemes that had a good chance of going ahead as it is very well advanced, is not particularly expensive, and involves upgrading one of the worst stretches of the A6 (Moneynick Road from Randalstown to Toome). However, the Minister has chosen to press ahead with the A5 in preference to the A6. There are strong arguments either way, but I would anticipate this leading to some debate in the weeks ahead.

4 February 2012: The supplementary public inquiry into the proposed junction at Bellshill Road/Annaghmore Road, which was postponed last September, will now begin at 10.30am on 13 Feb 2012 at Christ Church Parish Hall, 10 Station Road, Castledawson. The inquiry was postponed because it was deemed necessary to await the outcome of the Magherafelt Area Plan (MAP), which was finally adopted on 14 December 2011, perhaps to avoid pre-judging the outcome of the MAP. Now that the MAP has been adopted, it seems the inquiry can go ahead. The inspector is Mr JA Robb, who also chaired the original 2007 inquiry into scheme as a whole. Mr Robb is a self-employed Personal Development Advisor. There is still no news on timescale for this scheme - the official position is still that it will not proceed until after 2015.

12 November 2011: According to a report presented by Roads Service to Derry City Council two weeks ago, the supplementary public inquiry into the Bellshill Road junction (see previous update) must now be delayed until after the formal adoption of the Magherafelt Area Plan, I believe for legal reasons. This may happen next year, but we do not know. The main public inquiry took place in 2007.

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:

21 Sep 2011: The public inquiry due to be held last Monday (into the proposed junction at Bellshill Road and Annaghmore Road in Castledawson) was cancelled last week without explanation, or more accurately was postponed to an unspecified date in the future. No reason is given, but it may be that some issue has come up that is easier to sort out before the inquiry than during it. The arrangement proposed at this location has been locally very controversial.

23 July 2011: Although the public inquiry for this scheme happened in 2007, Roads Service have now announced that a supplementary public inquiry will take place in September. The original inquiry recommended changes to the junction at Bellshill Road and Annaghmore Road in Castledawson, which took a long time to finalise (see previous update). Because this new design requires more land and impacts on more properties than the original scheme, a new public inquiry is needed to look at these specific proposals (not the whole scheme). The Public Inquiry will be chaired by Mr JA Robb and will begin at 10.30am on 19 Sep 2011 in Christ Church Parish Hall, 10 Station Road, Castledawson. Full details here.

14 Jan 2011: It is a mixture of good and bad news for those interested in this scheme. On the plus side, Roads Service seem to have finally decided on the final layout of the junction at Bellshill Road and Annaghmore Road in Castledawson. This has been very controversial and has undergone a series of public consultantions and amendments. Roads Service have now revealed their final design and, while admitting that it will not please everyone, say that they believe it satisfies the largest number of people. The final design involves a new link road between Bellshill Road and Annaghmore Road, bridged over the upgraded A6, with sliproads providing access to and from the A6. The bad news is that Roads Service have revealed their budget for 2011-2015 and, due to lack of money, this scheme has now been put on hold, seemingly until at least 2015. This is very sad news, especially since this scheme had advanced to the point of being one of the next schemes due to begin.

30 Dec 2010: In a press release issued two weeks ago, the Minister stated that "subject to finance" he expected this scheme to get underway "in 2011" which is unchanged from the position in the summer. With the most recent Northern Ireland budget now decided, it does look as if this scheme may well go ahead within this timescale. Regarding the objections to the proposed junctions on the Toome to Castledawson part of the scheme, Roads Service's own page is saying "the planning of the revised junction improvements to be complete in late 2010". It's not clear whether this is current information or not as Roads Service's web site is frequently out of date.

18 Nov 2010: I wrote letters to three public representatives a month ago arguing that the decision to leave the two roundabouts at Toome in place was a mistake. Mark Durkan (MP for Foyle) did not acknowledge the letter. Fred Cobain (Chair of the Regional Development Committee) replied after a month to say that he had passed the letter on to Roads Service. Conor Murphy also passed his letter on to Roads Service who sent a reply setting out the logic behind the decision. They said "the volume of traffic joining/leaving the Drumderg roundabout is

They also note that the proposed roundabout would have "considerable reserve capacity" and that "journey time reliability may only become compromised much later". This answer is perfectly logical in the sense that an at-grade roundabout will easily be able to cope with the traffic levels anticipated and is the cheapest of the three options. I don't have access to counts of turning traffic at Drumderg so cannot say anything concrete on the matter, but the first point surprises me given that Banbridge (for example) is a significantly larger town than Toome yet is served by compact grade-separated junctions without apparent difficulty. The logic also seems to suggest that the capacity/cost ratio is the deciding factor in these matters. The fact that allowing traffic to flow freely without stopping is a reason in itself to grade separate a junction (quite independently from traffic figures) does not seem to be a factor in the decision, which is very disappointing. I still believe this to be a poor decision which will mar an otherwise excellent scheme for many years to come.

11 Sep 2010: The report presented to Derry City Council back in July contains the following sentence: "Roads Service is currently minded to set the Inspector’s recommendation aside and terminate the Randalstown to Toome dual carriageway in an enlarged roundabout at Drumderg, i.e. implement the proposal examined at the November 2007 public inquiry". In other words, they intend to enlarge Drumderg roundabout but not grade separate it. If true, this is an unbelievable decision. At a time when Roads Service has just completed a £12 million scheme to remove an at-grade roundabout on the A26 at Ballymena, Roads Service now seem intent on creating a similar bottleneck at Toome. I do not often express strong opinions on this site, but if the scheme proceeds with an at-grade roundabout at Toome then I would regard this as one of the worst road-building decisions of the past decade. At junctions such as this where 90%+ of traffic on a major dual-carriageway is continuing straight through, it is madness to leave an at-grade roundabout in place. Such situations exist or existed on the A1 at Hillsborough, the Westlink at Broadway and the A26 at Ballymena, and it has proven time-consuming and expensive to remove them once it has become obvious how many problems they create. If the road is built in this manner, then the Drumderg roundabout will cause a pointless delay for hundreds of thousands of motorists over the coming years before eventually the planners will have to upgrade the junction at a greater cost and disruption than it would have been to do the work at the time. Please Roads Service - do not leave Drumderg at-grade.

18 Aug 2010: In a briefing to Derry City Council in July, Roads Service said that work on the scheme is due to get underway on site "for 2011". However, it follows this with an important caveat that this "will depend on government funding", which is far from certain.

11 July 2010: The Minister was asked in the Assembly three weeks ago for an update on the timetable for this scheme and he replied that Roads Service "plans to make two direction orders later this year to facilitate the construction phase. It is anticipated that work will commence on site in the 2011-12 financial year, subject to the availability of finance at that time." The final caveat, of money, really renders the statement somewhat meaningless since nobody currently knows what finances will be available next year and beyond. Unfortuantely it is not possible for the Minister to be more specific than this, so we will just have to wait and see. He also stated that the project duration would be 24 months.

21 Apr 2010: The estimated cost of the scheme has risen slightly from "£100m" as of 2008, to a new figure of "£100-120m" as of now. Roads Service are reporting that comments and objections from last December's public exhibition have now been received, and that the finalised designs of the junctions are due to be released in "late 2010". There still seems to be uncertainty as to when construction will begin. All Roads Service are now saying is "Availability of finance at that time [late 2010] will determine when the scheme will be built."

7 December 2009: Last week the DRD published their revised plans for the Toome Bypass. You can view maps of the proposed changes on page 2 of this PDF file. The plans are quite extensive and include:

These proposals are extremely good news for motorists on the A6, and indeed should reduce rat-running through Toome village as well. In addition, the new plans for the Bellshill Road junction have been released. I have updated the strip map above to reflect all these changes. Service has outlined a schedule where construction would begin in 2012 and be completed by 2015. However, they are at pains to point out that this is dependant on funding, something which is far from certain in the current climate. If you wish to comment on the proposals, you will find the contact details and forms at the bottom of this page.

22 November 2009: The DRD is holding a pair of public exhibitions to explain the revised junction proposals (outlined in the previous update). They will be held as follows:

18 November 2009: The DRD officially released their response to the public inquiry on Monday. Not surprisingly, given the general support the scheme received in the inquiry, they have decided to proceed with the scheme. However, they have made a number of minor amendments in response to specific criticism from landowners and other affected parties. You can read about these in the two offical response documents, available here:

In terms of major alterations, the Public Inquiry had suggested that both the Drumderg roundabout, on the existing Toome Bypass, and the Castledawson roundabout, at the western end of the scheme, should be grade-separated (ie, flyovers). Roads Service have decided to make this change to the Drumderg roundabout. Although the DRD document makes no mention of the Roguery Road roundabout, also on the Toome Bypass, the update on 26 April 2009 noted that it too may be removed, meaning that the Toome Bypass may become fully freeflow when this scheme is completed. However, they have rejected the recommendation to grade separate the Castledawson roundabout on the grounds that the roundabout acts as an important reminder to motorists that they are leaving a high quality dual-carriageway and joining an ordinary two-lane road with T-junctions. Meanwhile, in a Written Answer in the Assembly, the Minister confirmed that the scheme is still programmed to begin in 2011/12, but this is of course subject to money being available at the time.

26 April 2009: Last August the inspector's report from the public inquiry was published. This made a number of recommendations, outlined below in the update for 26 August 2008. Roads Service is scheduled to make its reponse to this report in Autumn 2009. However, a clue is given on the last page of the minutes of a Roads Service board meeting held in January 2009. These suggest that the recommendations may be as follows:

I asked Roads Service, via the Freedom of Information Act, for more details on the proposals but it emerged that, since the material is due for publication in the Autumn, it was exempt from the FoI Act. We shall therefore have to wait until the Autumn for the full details!

16 Dec 2008: According to a Stormont Assembly written answer from last week, the estimated cost of the scheme has risen considerably from £70m to £100m. The information also suggests that work may be able to commence in 2011 with completion in 2014, subject to passing the normal processes. In November 2008, Roads Service issued a 4 page leaflet that provides a useful summary of the western part of the scheme, and a corresponding leaflet for the eastern portion. However note that the timescales given on page 4 in each case seems to be wrong by the most recent information. There is also no word on the progress of the revisions of the design of the Castledawson and Drumderg roundabouts (see update on 26 August below). The second leaflet also refers to the terminus of the M22 as "junction 3" which, as far as I am aware, is the first time this point has been given a junction number (until now the M22 has had a junction 1 and a junction 2 only). This may suggest that the new grade separated junction here is going to be signed as "junction 3".

26 Aug 2008: On 18 August, the inspector's report from the public inquiry was published. It recommended proceeding with both parts of the scheme with these modifications: (a) that the layout of the new road at Drumderg (eastern end of the Toome Bypass) should be revised (b) that the pair of junctions at Bellshill Road should be built as a full junction with bridge (c) that the proposed nearby bridge to carry Annaghmore Road over the A6 should therefore be abandoned and (d) that the design of the Castledawson roundabout should be revised, perhaps because this is now also the terminus of the proposed Magherafelt Bypass (see link at top of page). This document gives more details of the proposed changes. The commencement date is now being given as "2011".

28 Apr 2008: The Investment Delivery Strategy for Roads strategy document of April 2008 contains the surprise news that commencement on this scheme, which had been due in "late 2008" has now been pushed back considerably to 2010/11 with completion now not due until 2012/13. This is despite the fact that the public inquiries were held in November. The likely reason is that the promotion of the expensive A5 and A6 schemes has meant that other schemes, like this one, have been delayed.

22 Mar 2008: Public enquiries were held for both halves of this scheme in November, but as yet no report has been published. In the meantime, anyone interested in the scheme should be able to spend a few hours reading through the vast amount of material that Roads Service have made available on their web site (see link at top of this page) relating to the development of the scheme.

8 Oct 2007: According to this press release from September, a public inquiry is now to be held into the scheme. It will take place in November 2007. It is possible that this will push back the start date of this scheme.

19 Apr 2007: According to this page, construction has been pushed back to "late 2008" from the previously advertised "early 2007".

Roads Service now have detailed maps on their web site showing the junctions between the M22 and Toome and between Toome and Castledawson. The more general map below was released to the press by the Roads Service in September 2005. It shows the western part of the scheme at the top, and the eastern portion at the bottom. The recently completed Toome Bypass has been added in black. Individual junctions are not shown.