M40 plan unveiled
Page 5
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
INDUSTRY representatives thi week welcomed the news tha the Department of Transpor has announced the preferred route for the €190m M40 Bit mingham-Oxford motorway.
Junior Transport Ministe Kenneth Clarke announced oi Monday that a route has beei selected, with two-lane dual-car riageway from Waterstock ti Wendlebury, and three lane thereafter.
The route will by-pass sucl towns as Stratford-upon-Avor Henley-in-Arden, Woodstock and Long Compton, and is in tended also as a means of reliev ing traffic on the existing Ml/M, Birmingham-London route.
It is aimed primarily at easim the problems created by lorrie travelling through many village on the existing kclass roads ii the area, and aitTp spokesmal said he hoped it would help revi talise industry in the Oxfon area.
A Road Haulage Associatiol spokesman described the may as "clearly very good news". H. said the decision to go Mini with a motorway, rather than al all-purpose road, would lead ti more effective use being mad, of goods vehicles in the Wes and South Midlands.
He added that the benefit could be maximised by the earl. completion of the M42 southen orbital route, linking the M5 an' M6, and said work done alread. on the London end of the M41 would help accommodate . greater volume of traffic.
But he went on to warn tha the motorway is already unde pressure at peak times in th, High Wycombe area, when there is a two-lane stretch, am suggested that this might nullif. any apparent advantages o using the route as an altemativ, to the M1 /M6.
He was joined by the Brits' Road Federation in welcominj the move, but both organise tions pointed out that the roe' was first suggested in 1968, am in 1971, then Conservative road Minister Peter Walker ha, promised that the road would b, completed by the early 1980s.