Edinburgh relief road?
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LONG-AWAITED road construction is expected to be approved for Edinburgh next month, following Liberal/SDP councillors' decision to back a scheme to convert an old railway into a dual carriageway relief road to the west of the city.
The Conservative administration on Lothian Regional Council is already in favour of the scheme for a Western Relief Road, on disused railway trackbed, reversing an anti-new road policy operated by the former Labour administration. The road would run from the 'Dairy area of the city, near Murrayfield rugby stadium, to Maybury on the A8 road towards Glasgow, which eventually is to be the eastern end of the M8 route to the west of Scotland.
A consultants' report on the scheme estimates that the road will bring benefits of £9m in excess of the road's construction costs, with benefits both to the environment and to traffic flow, and there is scope for its further extension to the Roseburn district at a later date.
• Another consultants' report says it is feasible for a £17m scheme to be undertaken to convert the abandoned Woodhead Tunnel on the Sheffield-Manchester electric railway to a two-way 14-mile road.
A less elaborate one-way tunnel for eastbound traffic would cost £12m.
The railway was used latterly for freight, and the tunnel was built for the post-World War ll electrification of the line.