Ballygowan Road to Newry Road Link, Banbridge

 

Status
 Construction scheme (proposed)
Where
 To construct a link road connecting Ballygowan Road and Newry Road in Banbridge.
Total Length
0.8 km / 0.5 miles
Dates

Appears to have been a plan for many years
2007 - Scheme included in Sub-Regional Transportation Plan
Oct 2013 - Confirmed as a plan in adopted Banbridge, Newry and Mourne Area Plan
No plans to construct in near future - as of Aug 2014
Cost
 £unknown, likely to be partly developer funded.
Photos / Map
See below.
See Also

General area map - Google Maps

This road scheme is designed specifically to serve areas south of Banbridge town centre that have been zoned for housing (zonings BE13, BE24 and BE26 for those interested). The amount of housing land here is too large to be handled by the existing road network so this link road is required to provide access of adequate capacity. Because it is designed to serve these housing developments, the Banbridge, Newry and Mourne Area Plan says that it will be "mainly developer led". This means that its timing will depend on when the land is developed, and will be largely or totally paid for by the developer (although TransportNI will approve the design and presumably adopt the road once it is finished). The map below shows the proposed route:


View Ballygowan Road to Newry Road Link, Banbridge in a larger map

You can see from the aerial view that this scheme has been proposed for some time, since existing housing developments have been built with the line of the road clearly in mind. The Banbridge, Newry and Mourne Area Plan notes that the road could be built in two parts, with one part being the long stretch from Ballygowan Road to Old Newry Road, and the second part being the shorter stretch connecting Old Newry Road to Newry Road. The first few metres of the western end of the road was built as part of the Gowanvale Drive development - see Google Streetview. You can see the context in this map from the Planning Service (link working as of Aug 2014).

At the time of writing (August 2014) there do not appear to be any plans to build this road in the near future. The proposal has the reference number BE57 in the 2013 Banbridge, Newry and Mourne Area Plan.

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