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Towcester needs a bypass all it will get is a 'link road'
Page 18
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Plans by developer Persimmon Homes to construct a trunk road have
Deen rejected by the Highways Agency. Roanna Avison reports.
\ WEEK AFTER hauliers were isked to re-route their trucks to tvoid passing through Towcester, %lorthants (CM 5 April), it has :merged that what locals thought vould be a bypass for the town will ictually be a local link road.
The town, which is bisected by he AS, has struggled to meet its ir-quality targets. Residents hope bypass will solve the problem in he long term, but as a short-term olution South Northants Council SNC) has asked LGVs to use the 41 instead of the AS.
Locals had hoped that a road roposed by Persimmon Homes as part of a housing development would be the solution.
However East Midlands Highways Agency says this was only ever meant to be a local link road; not a trunk road.
Julie Ewers, SNC environmental health officer, confirms that the council is still hoping for a bypass, but that the plans proposed by Persimmon Hornes,which is building 3,000 houses near Towcester, have already been rejected by the Highways Agency.
"The HA has said the road planned by Persimmon is not up to scratch to be called a trunk road and therefore all the traffic would still have to come throughTowcester," she reports.
Ewers adds that there are political implications because there is a West Northamptonshire Development Corporation plan for regional growth in the south Midlands. This includes building more than 100,(X)0 homes—but does not make any allowances for improvements to the infrastructure.
Ewers says: "We think that if these homes are going to be built, proper traffic management should be included in the plans.
"We had been told we would get a bypass linking the AS to the A43 south ofTowcester, but it looks like all [Persimmon] is doing is developing its access road — and if the HA won't make it a trunk road, then all the traffic will still go through the town."
A spokeswoman for HA says the road linking the AS to the A43 will be built to serve the new-development at Towcester Vale: "The HA will not consider classifying it as a trunk road because it will have too many roads turning off it. It will not be a Towcester bypass.
Persimmon Homes was not available to comment.