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In June 2010, and again in December 2021, the preferred route was announced for the proposed A29 Cookstown Bypass. The bypass will run to the east of the town connecting the Loughry Roundabout (on the A29 Dungannon Road at the south of the town) to the Moneymore Road to the north. The problem with this is that the A505 Drum Road (which goes west towards Omagh) will continue to join the main street in Cookstown since it's on the 'wrong' side of the town to the Bypass. Motorists coming from the west on the A505 and wishing to continue north towards Moneymore would likely continue to use the main street.

This proposal would upgrade the local road network to make it much easier to access the proposed Cookstown Bypass from the A505 and encourage as much through traffic as possible to divert onto it. The plan, as shown on the map below, would upgrade a local industrial/residential road - the Sandholes Link Road - and provide roundabouts at either end. The upgraded road would have one lane in each direction with right-turn pockets for every side road. This would encourage vehicles to transfer across to the Bypass rather than continuing to the main street. A more detailed map of the proposed upgrade to Sandholes Link is shown in the bottom of the image of the A29 Cookstown Bypass below (click to enlarge) - note that north is to the right in this view with the A505 Drum Road to the right.

It is likely that the A505 number will be reassigned to the upgraded Sandholes Link Road, but this is conjecture on my part as DFI have not said anything on this matter.

Earlier proposals

The map below shows the route as proposed in 2010. It was the same as the 2021 proposal, except that at the southern end of Sandholes Link it cut across an existing minor road (Strifehill Road) to meet Sandholes Road. This short-cut has now been deleted, so the current proposal is to follow Sandholes Link the whole way to Sandholes Road.

Updates

19 Jun 2024: DFI have now published the most recent design for the Cookstown Bypass and Sandholes Link Road. The design is shown further up this page (the lower panel labelled "Specimen Design") which has north to the right. It is virtually unchanged, except that the alignment of the approach to the new roundabout on Sandholes Road is not quite as torturous as previously. The Sandholes Link, although not physically part of the Cookstown Bypass proposal, is being taken through planning along with it. The just-published exhibition leaflet confirms that, if a public inquiry is needed, it will happen in late 2024. It then goes on to suggest tendering and construction during the period "2025-27". While things are looking good for the overall scheme, it is worth noting that it doesn't yet have a sufficient capital allocation for construction so this timescale will depend on cash becoming available.

21 Dec 2021: DFI published their updated 'preferred route' for this scheme on 7 Dec 2021. You can see it above. Although it remains a single-carriageway, the route has changed since the 2010 proposals - it is now an upgrade of the Sandholes Link Road for the whole distance from Drum Road to Sandholes Road, rather than subsuming Strifehill Road as was proposed in 2010. This makes the layout of the southern of the two roundabouts slightly more tortured, but DFI have come up with a design that works despite this.

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