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Road-need residents sigh with relief

Business leaders, residents, shopkeepers, head teachers and community leaders in Weymouth will be sighing with relief over their Christmas present from the Department for Transport.

Weymouth was given the go-ahead for its long-awaited relief road yesterday after nearly 80 years of waiting.

Plans to build a new road to replace the regularly snarled-up A354 between Dorchester and Weymouth have been mooted since 1926 but after being discussed and debated for many years the proposal is now accepted as Dorset County Council's highest priority highway scheme.

With the DFT announcment yesterday, the way was cleared for the controversial £54.6 million route to be built between the Ridgeway and the Manor roundabout on Dorchester Road.

Many hurdles will remain however, as the next stage is to obtain planning permission with possible objections from environmentalists still to be dealt with.

The good news is that with people working on the project for so long, many of the objections have been studied and alleviated already. Yesterday environmental objections to the scheme by three nature groups were withdrawn at a meeting of Dorset County Council's cabinet.

The route approved is the so-called 'Orange' route, which runs through woodland where objectors recently discovered two rare species of bats. The plan now calls for artificial bat roosts to be established in a bid to re-site the creatures.

The plans also call for an overall reinstatement of woodland as well as other environmental improvements such as a wildlife pond.

Miles Butler, director of environmental services, said it was likely that the impacts on ecology could be compensated through habitat creation.

He added: "There is an overall gain in woodland and scrub areas in the medium term.
"I believe we have come up with a balanced solution."

Jim Knight, MP for South Dorset said on BBC TV yesterday: "I'm absolutely delighted with this news, it's tremendous for everyone who lives in Weymouth and Portland but the government has listened to their pleas that we should finally get this relief road."

"Now we've got to get on with the planning and hopefully the road will be up and running in five, six or seven years."