About Barnstaple Western Bypass The Barnstaple western bypass is the long awaited answer to Barnstaple’s traffic congestion problems. 30 years in the planning, the 42 million pound western bypass covers a two mile piece of road, linking the A39 Atlantic highway to the A361 Braunton road at Pottington Industrial Estate, this road includes a three span bridge that straddles the River Taw. A charity event was held on Sunday the 13th of May 2007, which about 6000 people attended. The event was to allow people to walk across the new bridge for the very first time, before it was officially opened to traffic. Unfortunately the British weather was dreadful and it was sadly a bit of a wash out. The bridge was finally opened to traffic on Wednesday 23rd May 2007. Ironically this was a glorious day weather wise.
The project to build the relief road started with a turf cutting ceremony in the first week of February 2005, and has finished on time and within budget ready for the Whitsun bank holiday weekend. The project was late starting, due to friend of the earth campaigners claiming it would disturb the wildlife that lived on the Taw and Torridge estuary. This debate came to a satisfactory conclusion for all concerned. Most of the material used to make the relief road was sourced locally from Devon quarries, this equated to 500000 tonnes of fill material, about 64000 tonnes of material for the carriageway, and the bridge has approximately 38000 tonnes of concrete and 2000 tonnes of steel, about 125 men worked on the project. Some of the relief roads décor has been very controversial with the introduction of eighteen horrendous looking Cornish Stones on the roundabout at the bottom of Sticklepath Hill. Most Barnstaple locals are disgusted that the council spent so much money on these stones, when the money could have been better spent elsewhere, it surely won’t be long before a local graffiti artist decides to decorate them (mind you in my opinion this could well be an improvement). Time will tell whether the new relief road will help the congestion problems that Barnstaple has suffered for years. I personally feel that it’s got to help. Let us keep our fingers crossed that the local council don’t get too carried away closing other roads around the town and making the traffic problems worse. Gallery
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