The centre of Banbridge features "the Cut", which at a stretch can be considered to be Ireland's first grade-separated junction! In fact, it was built in 1834 in order to reduce the incline for horse-drawn mail carriages. The centre of the Cut is spanned by a bridge that is the meeting place of four roads - Bridge Street, Newry Street, Rathfriland Road and Scarva Road. This junction is very busy and the DRD have long aspired to construct a short link bypassing the north-east corner of the junction linking Bridge Street directly to Rathfriland Road. Half of the route already exists in the form of Gospel Lane, which is 140 metres long and is currently used to access two car parks and Solitude Park.

This scheme will see Gospel Lane extended to the north west, along what is currently a footpath, to meet Bridge Street here. This will require a 60 metre long earth retaining wall, since the land slopes quite sharply down to the River Bann along this stretch. This part of the route is actually a disused railway line, so it has a past history of use as a major transport conduit. The existing Gospel Lane will be resurfaced as part of the contract. The new link will be equipped with a footpath and cycle path. The map below shows the arrangement with the existing Gospel Lane shown in red and the extension shown in green. These two components, when combined together, will form the Gospel Lane Link Road. When first proposed, the suggestion was that the "green" portion of the link would be one-way only, ie from Bridge Street towards Rathfriland Road. It's not clear whether this is still the plan.

Updates

5 Jan 2015: According to the Banbridge Leader, the Gospel Lane Link Road is now completed and in use. The Minister said that the scheme "represents a significant capital investment in the order of £500,000". It's not clear if this is the total project cost, but that would be within the right ballpark for a scheme of this size. Catriona Regan (Director of Leisure and Development) is quoted as saying "Without the funding Gospel Lane would not have included the attractive granite materials which have been used to enhance the project." This backs up the comment in the update for 22 August (below) where I noted that the contract specified granite materials. It looks as if the first portion of the scheme, shown in green on the map above, is one-way southbound as originally envisaged. Congratulations to the contractor, McAvoy construction, for a nice piece of work. Hopefully the people of Banbridge fill find the scheme beneficial.

14 Sep 2014: The construction contract for this scheme was awarded to McAvoy Construction on 10th September. According to a DRD press release, work is due to begin on the ground in a week's time, on 22 September, and will last "around twelve weeks". This would suggest completion by Christmas 2014.

22 Aug 2014: The scheme went out to tender in June and the deadline for submission of tenders was 11 July 2014. It has not yet been awarded. The scheme seems to require completion to a high standard of finish, presumably due to its sensitive location between the town centre and Solitude Park. The tender specifies "landscape and ecology, granite kerbs with paving setts, decorative street furniture, railings and gates". We could expect the tender to be awarded within the next few weeks, in which case construction would likely get underway before Christmas.