Shake-ups in Barnstaple as relief road drags on •
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WITHOUT stage four of the Barnstaple urban relief road, the present year-round heavy traffic would continue to harm the older areas of the town, claimed Tony Speller (Tory, Devon North) in the House of Commons.
He warned that as the building of the motorway to North Devon went ahead traffic would move swiftly from London to the Midlands until it reached Barnstaple.
Then there would be a vast tailback if stages one, two and three of the relief road are not completed.
Junior Transport Minister Kenneth Clarke replied that stage four could not start until the other three stages had been finished, and it did not seem likely that they would be completed before 1991.
It would require a big upsurge in road-building funds at the end of this decade for stage four to be completed prior to that date.
This did not mean that stage four had been abandoned, said Mr Clarke and he was confident that the line of the road would be protected so that at some stage, when resources were available, it could be constructed.