A £400M package of major improvements to the trunk road network in Northern Ireland has been put forward for public consultation.
The finance comes from the Investment Strategy for Northern Ireland fund and has been earmarked for projects up to 2015. Together with the £1bn already in place it means that funding for Northern Ireland’s strategic road network now stands at £1.4bn – the highest for 30 years.
Under Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, David Cairns has launched a two-month public consultation on how to best spend the money, with 29 September the closing date for responses.
The roads minister said: ‘Even with this level of funding choices have had to be made, as not every scheme can be funded.’
‘While we believe this package makes best use of the funds available, the consultation I am announcing will afford all those interested an opportunity to comment on our proposals.’
The proposed list of projects includes the £130M A5 route from Derry to Strabane and on to Victoria Bridge, bypasses of Enniskillen, Fivemiletown and Ballykelly, and a £10M package of improvements for the A32 between Omagh and Enniskillen.
Other schemes are also proposed to deal with bottlenecks on highly trafficked routes. These include a £50M scheme to provide a flyover junction carrying Westlink over York Street as well as dualling on the A26 from Coleraine to Ballymoney and the A3 from Portadown to Richill.
On the key A1 route to the border, there would be a new £45M link between the M1 and Hillsborough to take through traffic past Sprucefield, with four additional flyover junctions on the existing dual between Hillsborough and Loughbrickland which, together with the four already programmed, will turn this section of the route into an expressway. The roads service of the Department for Regional Development drew up a priority list of schemes for additional funding by building on the Strategic Network Transport Plan which was published in March last year.
David Orr roads service’s director of network services, said: ‘This consultation is an important first step towards getting the work on the ground.’
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