Completion of the Heysham to M6 Link

What is the cost of the scheme?

When the Major Scheme Business Case was submitted to the Department for Transport in July 2005 the estimated cost of the Link Road was £87.7m at December 2003 prices. This estimate was revised to January 2006 prices by adding construction inflation of 6% per annum thereby giving an amended estimated cost of £98.5m. The estimated cost is currently being updated to allow for changes to the scheme - these are the amended designs of the sliproads as required by the Highways Agency and the addition of the Park and Ride at Junction 34.

Due to inflation the scheme will cost more to build than the estimate based on current prices. Any delay in building the scheme will mean that it costs more.

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How much of the traffic is local?

By local we mean traffic that is travelling between the peninsula and the centre of Lancaster and would therefore not use the link road. Our figures show that 62% of the trips are `local’ (not 80% as is being claimed) but more importantly the scheme reduces congestion (as measured in minutes per km per vehicle) by about 50% between Morecambe Road and the M6 via A683. ie. the link gives substantial relief to the bridges over the Lune and to Caton Road.

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Why build a route to the north when virtually all the traffic that wants to go to the Peninsula comes from the south

The simple answer to that is that most of the traffic comes from the north and the east not from the south. Roadside Interviews showed that the “strategic” ( i.e . the 38% of traffic that is not local) traffic is split as follows:

Coming from the south (beyond M6 J33) - 44%

Coming from the north (beyond M6 J35) - 38%

Coming from the east (beyond M6 exc Halton) - 18%

Whereas any route to the west of Lancaster would only cater for traffic from the south the northern route caters for traffic from all directions and because it attracts so much traffic from less suitable routes (for instance Hasty Brow Road, Barley Cop Lane and A5105 Coastal Road) it has to be built as a dual carriageway. Instead of being “a long way round” the link road is actually shorter from the M6 at Junction 34 to Morecambe Road than the existing route via Caton Road.

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What is the effect on residents?

Air Quality : 3,545 properties will have worse air quality when the route is completed and 17,756 properties will have an improvement in air quality. This means that with an average of, say, 3 people per property; over 42,000 people will benefit from less pollution as traffic is taken away from residential areas.

Noise : A similar story to air quality with a huge number of people benefiting from the redistribution of traffic onto more suitable roads.

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