Friday 15 February 2008

Website devoted to Dobwalls Bypass

A recent entry on this blog was about the yet to be built St Mellion Bypass on the A388 between Callington and Saltash. That was triggered by the enormous expansion plans of the nearby golf course. Whereas that particular road scheme is for the future one that is being constructed at the moment is the Dobwalls Bypass also in East Cornwall. I have briefly alluded to this improvement before but I'm interested to note that a keen photographer, Ian Foster, has a website here where he has been keeping tabs on construction progress. Each month there is a separate folder linked from his homepage to illustrate what has been going on. You can also click on 'Published scheme' which displays a map of the area - this is fortunate as it helps to sort out the geography, without it some of the road names mentioned by Ian might not mean a lot unless you live there.

Everything appears to be progressing well and the opening date which I think is next September is quite realistic I would say. In fact I would be surprised if one carriageway of the new dual carriageway road wasn't open by the August bank holiday.

Some folk will say that there should be an embargo on any new road building. That I would aver is neither right nor reasonable and I am a passionate environmentalist! Yes a much improved road could well encourage more traffic. And yes there is an environmental cost in making any sort of construction. Let us assume for a moment that we could put a lid on the number of vehicle miles in this country. The present level of traffic through Dobwalls is deleterious in terms of air pollution, noise pollution, potential for vehicle/pedestrian conflict and the general wellbeing of the inhabitants. The environmental benefits resulting from traffic that is flowing far more freely can't be ignored. Accessibility for emergency vehicles to the village will be much improved too.

I'm not saying that literally every road scheme on the drawing board should come to fruition but in Dobwall's case surely most people will applaud what is happening.

1 comment:

brian in the tamar valley said...

Oh dear! I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later. Suffice to say that I've no idea who Jason is and his spamming has nothing to do with the content of this blog.

There is the facility for me to view comments before allowing publication. I would prefer not to enable this option but might have to if this silliness from spammers becomes more of a nuisance.