Progress on £7.3million roads investment

Speaking after Thursday night’s meeting between Roads Service and Ballymena Borough Council, the Minister said: “A wide range of road improvement and maintenance schemes is planned or already complete in the Ballymena Council area.

“The autumn round of Council meetings is a timely opportunity for Councils to discuss potential schemes and priorities.”

The Minister welcomed the Executive’s decision to allocate around £8million in 2014/15 for the A26 scheme. The project will involve the provision of seven kilometres of dual carriageway between Glarryford and the A44 Drones Road (the Ballycastle Fork).

“This decision will help to progress the delivery of this long-awaited scheme. I have supported calls for this project to be brought forward and am fully aware of the benefits it will bring to the local economy and the public.

“The next step will be the publication of the Departmental statement which is my consideration of the Inspector’s findings into the public inquiry for the scheme.”

At the meeting, Principal Engineer Malcolm Glover highlighted a number of improvement and maintenance schemes currently planned or progressed this financial year. These included the final stage of the Ballymena to Cullybackey footway and further improvements to the footway along Station Road, from Kells towards the Kells and Connor Primary School. There are also proposals to provide a short link of new footway on Church Road Kells to link the Health Centre to the newly constructed Community Garden in Connor.

The designs for a roundabout at the Cromkill Road junction with Ballee Road West and for an increased right/left stagger between the two junctions of Woodtown Road and Cullybackey Road and have been finalised. These schemes are now in a position to compete for inclusion in the works programme in the next and subsequent financial years.

Malcolm Glover welcomed expenditure on structural maintenance which had allowed the Division to deliver many needed projects including over 18km of carriageway resurfacing at a cost of £2.27million. This included significant lengths of resurfacing on the M2 Ballymena By-Pass, A26 Crankill Road, A26 Lisnevenagh Road, B18 Whitesides Road and B96 Dreen Road which have been completed.

Malcolm Glover said “I am also pleased to note the completion of the upgrade of traffic signals and junction layout at Harryville Bridge, Bridge Street and Waveney Road, Ballymena which will enhance capacity at this busy junction and improve pedestrian crossing opportunities. The existing Pedestrian Crossings at North Road and Linenhall Street have been upgraded to the new Puffin style of crossing and a short length of shared pedestrian and cycle path at Ballykeel community centre has been completed. The introduction of a pedestrian refuge island in conjunction with footway improvements on Antrim Road has improved safety for pedestrians and visibility for traffic emerging from the petrol filling station.”