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Current area plans have marked Ballyclare as a town for significant growth to accommodate some of Northern Ireland's fast growing population. However the town is severly limited by the fact that the only way to get from the north of the town to the south, and hence to Belfast, is via the congested main street. This proposal will not necessarily diminish the traffic on the main street, but it should allow continued housing development in the town without increasing congestion at that location. It will see a new two-lane road link running round the north west of the town connecting the A57 Templepatrick Road to the west of Ballyclare to the B94 Rashee Road north of Ballyclare via the B95 Doagh Road. This will include a second bridge over the Six Mile Water. The approximate route is shown below (scroll further down for an alternative map).
The proposal has been on the cards for at least 20 years, and was most recently included in the Belfast Metropolitan Area Plan 2015 (first published 2004). Construction of the road was always planned to be carried out by private developers, but it was not until August 2009 that a developer - KPL Group - secured sufficient land to announce its construction which the Ballyclare Gazette described as "the largest and most expensive privately funded road proposal ever brought forward in Northern Ireland". The road is needed in order to begin work on a major housing development which will take up to 20 years to complete and include around 2000 homes when completed. A pair of planning applications for the road have already been submitted, with part 1 being the short section from Templepatrick Road to Doagh Road, and part 2 being the longer section from there to Rashee Road. It is still not certain whether the entire road will be constructed at once, or just part 1 initially. Route Assuming that the maps released to the public in August 2009 don't change, the route appears to be a single-carriageway made up as follows:
Note that this route differs slightly from that proposed in the Belfast Metropolitan Area Plan in that the northern section runs further out from the town than envisaged in that document. The sketched Google Maps overlay below shows the approximate route proposed. Updates 12 Dec 2011: According to Newtownabbey
Today, work on the first phase of this
road is now due to start in February 2012. We
had previously expected work to begin during
the past year, but there has been no evidence
of work and no explanation. According to the
article, the reason for the delay was "environmental
regulations when several [12] badger setts
were discovered along the proposed two-mile
route". Hopefully we will see work
begin within this timescale. 5 Jun 2011: Work has still not begun on the road. However I was at the site of the associated housing development last week and one of the people working on the site said that they thought the work on the road would be beginning "in July". This is not official information, so could be completely wrong, but as it's all we have I am sharing it anyway! The property company has now set up a web site which devotes a page to the road (but with no maps) which it calls the "Westlands Link Road", although the final say on the road name lies with Newtownabbey Borough Council. 14 Jan 2011: After much delay, planning permission for this proposed road and associated housing development has finally been granted. It is not clear when construction on the road will begin, except to note that (i) KPL seem keen to proceed (ii) work on the road will begin prior to the bulk of the housing development. As it is being progressed by a private developer there are unlikely to be any announcements when work does begin. 18 Sep 2010: Work had been due to get underway on the new road in August 2010, but this did not happen. According to the Newtownabbey Today, the delay is due to the fact that the Planning Appeals Commission have delayed the publication of their report into the inquiry into the Belfast Metropolitan Area Plan 2015 (BMAP) until at least March 2011. As this road scheme is part of the BMAP, it is likely to be affected by this delay. The developer (KPL) has not commented, so their position is unknown. June 2010: According to Newtownabbey Today, work on the houses associated with this development began in May, on land off Rashee Road. However, work on the road did not begin in April 2010 as was anticipated back in August last year. It has now emerged that approval for the road cannot be given until the finalised Belfast Metropolitan Area Plan 2015 (BMAP) has been published. This is presumably because provision of the link road is included in the BMAP and is hence part of the plan. The BMAP *may* be published later in 2010, but no firm date has been given. The developer (KPL Group) is saying that work may begin on the road in "August 2010", but with the dependency on BMAP this seems very optimistic. The article has also confirmed that the road will be built in two stages. The 1km section from Templepatrick Road to Doagh Road will be built first, with the extension to Rashee Road following later, possibly a year or more later. Photos
The view west along Doagh Road,
Ballyclare. The new road will cross this road
Looking south, towards Ballyclare, along Rashee Road from the Cogry Road junction. The new road will terminate near where the car is parked. Taken in 2003. [Wesley Johnston]
Artist's impression of how the new
road and associated housing development |
