Two years to link €15m bypass in Wicklow to N11

A €15 million dual carriageway bypass in north Co Wicklow that ends in a field may not be connected to the road network for two years, it has emerged.

The Greystones Southern Access Route was designed as a bypass of Delgany village to link 3,000 new homes between Greystones and Delgany to the N11.

Now, however, with many of these homes already built, the bypass stops about 600 metres short of the N11.

The National Roads Authority pulled back from building the interchange because it said it had discovered the land on which it had been planned by Wicklow County Council's design office had been an unlicensed dump.

Members of the council also voted to rezone the land for industrial use even though it was known that the council itself would have to acquire the land by compulsory purchase, with NRA funding.

While that problem appears to have been solved by altering the design, it will take at least 18 months to two years to build the interchange.

Minister for the Environment and local TD Dick Roche proposed having a short stretch of road and a small roundabout linking only the southbound carriageway of the N11 to the dual carriageway.

Once on the N11, traffic from the bypass could access the northbound carriageway at the next interchange.

This system would take only months to build. With the agreement of landowners on the sale of land it and could begin later this year.

However, The Irish Times understands this plan has been rejected because engineers said it would obstruct building work on the more permanent solution.

The NRA and council engineers considered up to 10 designs for roads and interim roads that could connect the bypass to the N11.

It is now understood that the only likely proposal is the construction of the interchange with no interim measure.

The NRA is now likely to include funding for the the interchange in the roads programme for 2006.

Local councillor Derek Mitchell (FG) said the issue was unusual in that it was not about money, as property developers in the area had offered to fund the building of the interchange.

He said An Bord Pleanála had made a mistake by allowing so much building to go ahead in the area without upholding a condition that the access road should first be in place.