Appeal Over Road-Widening Project

One of Northern Ireland's most notorious accident 'blackspots' is now at the centre of a row over the route that a vital road-widening scheme will take.

With support from local MP and outgoing First Minister, Dr Ian Paisley and other local MLAs, the NI Assembly was this week lobbied on the issue which centres on the A26 - the principal route north from Antrim to Coleraine - passing Ballymena and Ballymoney on the way.

If the original motorway plans of the 1960s had taken place, this traffic would all be carried by an extended M2.

However, the M2 was never completed and so the A26 carries the traffic.

Now, the Roads Service is making a decision on which of five routes to choose to widen the bottleneck - the scene of a number of very serious road accidents over the years.

This scheme will see the next 7km dualled as far as the A44 Drones Road junction - where all the traffic for Ballycastle diverts.

The development is an attempt to improve infrastructure and safety in the area as this part of road has seen many fatal car accidents.

An ad hoc group, the Frosses Road Association (FRA) has now been lobbying with a presentation to the Department of Regional Development Committee, telling MLAs that while there were five potential routes for the road, they feared the Department would choose one of two that go through prime arable land - ruining countryside, farms and homes in the process.

The group is arguing for the dual carriageway to stay close to the current single-track road.

However, the softer peat land around the route may be a less attractive, less viable and more costly option than going through the firmer farmland.

It would also offer less disruption to traffic, being further removed from the current road.

An entirely new road would also be safer as it would not have to incorporate junctions.

Residents, however, argue that the present route is shorter and more level.

Wallace Gregg, of the FRA, said: "Two of the possible routes go through virgin countryside, prime agricultural land, farms, houses and affects businesses.

"The current road has been there for something like 150 years and was the work of Co Antrim surveyor Charles Lanyon [who also designed Queen's University].

"It and the River Maine present the natural borders in the area, around which the local community has grown and settled and developed livelihoods and social networks – all of that is now under threat," he said.

The project was originally costed at around £35 million but that has spiralled to somewhere between £45 and £51 million.

(BMcC)