The B95 is the only B-classified dual-carriageway outside urban areas in Northern Ireland. It was destined to be something much grander, and might even have ended up as a motorway had history been different! As it is, it joins Greystone Road as the main route into Antrim from the Belfast direction. It begins at the Rathbeg roundabout and ends by narrowing down to a 2-lane single-carriageway road.

Details are hard to come by, but there seems to have been a plan in the 1970s to build a dual-carriageway road from the M2 at Antrim at least round the eastern side of the town and possibly as far south as Aldergrove airport. The first mile of this road was built by the 1980s and originally ended somewhat awkwardly at a T-junction on the Greystone Road. It has since been realigned to flow directly onto this road. The former carriageway can still be explored on foot. The tarmac is heavily overgrown, and one lane has been dug up to lay a pipe, but white lines and the central reservation can still be made out. When numbering Northern Ireland's grand motorway plans in the 1960s, the number M21 was reserved for a possible route from the M2 to Aldergrove, so the B95 may even have been intended to be an embryonic motorway!

Plans have been proposed to build a new bypass round the east side of Antrim by extending the B95 southwards. However, these proposals have so far not made it into the construction schedule so it is unlikely to happen within the foreseeable future.

If anyone can help me with the construction dates for this scheme, please get in touch!

Photos

The B95 seen looking towards the Rathbeg roundabout with Antrim town behind the camera in 2005. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]

The original southbound carriageway of the B95 looking towards Antrim. The road has now been realigned to the right. The original line can be seen in the first photo as the line of the hedge on the right. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]