Northcott Link Road, Glengormley (Jubilee Way)

 

Status
Construction scheme (completed)
Where
To connect the Antrim Road and Ballyclare Road, Glengormley
Total Length
0.6 km / 0.4 miles
Dates

Scheme proposed in Belfast Transportation Study - 1969

Planning permission granted - Oct 2002
Work began - circa start of 2003

Completed - August 2003
Road later named "Jubilee Way" by Newtownabbey Borough Council

Cost
£1m* - funded by private developers.
*according to an article in Belfast Telegraph 12 Aug 2003
Photos
See below
See Also

General area map of Glengormley
Blog entry about the unbuilt roads of Newtownabbey

This is one of the longest-running scheme proposals in Northern Ireland. A road link connecting the Antrim Road to the Ballyclare Road and on to the Carnmoney Road was first proposed in the Belfast Transportation Study of 1969, and land reserved for it. This extract from the Belfast Transportation Study shows the proposed road, labelled here as "N19":


Extract from Belfast Transportation Study of 1966 showing proposed Northcott link road: the western part of the green line labelled N19.

However, despite bits of the road being built (in the form of Burnthill Road) in the interim, the link to Antrim Road remained absent. Northcott Shopping Centre occupied the site for much of the interim, and there was a small one-way exit road beside the car park that was probably intended to preserve the route of the proposed N19 link. The picture below shows this road. You can also see it in Google Earth by switching on "historical imagery" and going back to 2001.


The pre-existing one-way road that occupied the site of what is now the Northcott link road, here seen on 7 March 2002. View west from entrance to Northcott Shopping Centre. Click here to see the same view today in Google StreetView. [Wesley Johnston]

However, even this road was not completed as far as Antrim Road. Part of the reason for this was that there were three detached houses on the Antrim Road blocking its path. These were slowly purchased and cleared, presumably by the owners of the shopping centre. Work finally got underway on the road in late 2002/early 2003 and it was opened that August:

Construction work on the Northcott link road underway on 3 April 2003. View west from just after the entrance to Northcott Shopping Centre.  [Wesley Johnston]

The construction appears to have been related to a planning application to knock down Northcott and replace it with a new complex known as Sandyknowes Shopping Centre, which is finally under development at the time of writing (Nov 2012). The road as it looks today is shown below. (Those who are interesting in reading more about Newtownabbey's unbuilt 1960s road schemes may find my blog entry on the subject interesting.)


View this Northcott Link Road in a larger map