"Larne West" is a term that has been in use since the early 1990s and refers to the plan to release large quantities of land for new housing to the west of the town. Because it was recognised that such large-scale development (111 hectares) would require new road infrastructure, the DOE published the "Larne West Study" in 1992. This study delineated two new distributor roads to serve the land. The first, in the north, would connect Killyglen Road and Linn Road. The second, in the south, would connect the first distributor to the main A8 at Millbrook. This page refers to the first of these. the map below shows the two roads, with the northern part in red and the southern part in blue. The developers of the housing would be required to fund and build the roads in their entirety, and once completed to an appropriate standard they would be "adopted" by Roads Service who would be responsible for maintaining them.

The Larne West Study required the road to built to a particular standard: 7.3m wide with 2m footpaths and 3.5m verges on either side. There were also to be no private accesses directly onto the road. Instead, houses would front onto side roads which would themselves link to the distributor road at regular intervals.

Work began some time after 2001 (I have been unable to determine exactly when) and the road was largely completed by 2009 when the developer, Eassda, went into administration. At that point the road was severed between the Lindara and Blackthorn developments by a short incomplete section of road. The Google Streetview below shows the view north west from the Lindara side in August 2011. This pile of earth is all that prevented it functioning as a through road. There was then a frustrating four year period of limbo when Roads Service refused to take responsibility for the road because it had not been completed to the standard required, but the developer was no longer in a position to carry out the work. The solution finally came in late 2013 when Roads Service used a £500,000 "Road bond" that the developer had put up some years before to complete and finally open the road. This also involved laying a new water main along the route.

Screenshot from Google Streetview showing the view north along the road from the Lindara development. Its continuation in the Blackthorn development is seen beyond. [Google Streetview]

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