De-bypassed Towns?

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ajuk
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De-bypassed Towns?

Post by ajuk »

Are there any other examples other than Cullompton of a town being (partially) unbypassed after once being properly bypassed?
Last edited by ajuk on Sun Jan 23, 2022 01:58, edited 1 time in total.
NICK 647063
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Re: Unbypassed Towns?

Post by NICK 647063 »

Cullompton is fully bypassed by the M5! As it takes the through traffic away!
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Re: Unbypassed Towns?

Post by Micro The Maniac »

I'm tempted to nominate Bordon in Hampshire

The A325 was diverted away from the through route which was then downgraded to a C-road... but the single-carriageway relief route, with its 30 limit, several roundabouts and multiple traffic light controlled junctions is longer (both in time and distance) than just driving through the middle. Entirely as predicted in the first place.
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Mapper89062
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Re: Unbypassed Towns?

Post by Mapper89062 »

Wouldn't "debypassed" be a more accurate title? I thought when clicking on this thread that this would be about towns that have never yet had a bypass...

Anyway, while it's pretty rare for a bypass to be removed if it hasn't been replaced, I suppose Huntingdon is sort of going to be debypassed with the removal of the viaduct, since you'll now have to join local roads through the town to cross the railway line, and the new route goes miles away from Huntingdon.

Another take on this could be towns that have outgrown a bypass, resulting in the bypass not really bypassing the town anymore. There are dozens of those, mostly those built in the 1930s.
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Re: Unbypassed Towns?

Post by B1040 »

:wink:
Mapper89062 wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 16:21

Anyway, while it's pretty rare for a bypass to be removed if it hasn't been replaced, I suppose Huntingdon is sort of going to be debypassed with the removal of the viaduct, since you'll now have to join local roads through the town to cross the railway line, and the new route goes miles away from Huntingdon.

Another take on this could be towns that have outgrown a bypass, resulting in the bypass not really bypassing the town anymore. There are dozens of those, mostly those built in the 1930s.
Huntingdon is a good example.
Chelmsford, Colchester, Ipswich and Lincoln are all towns I know where the '30s bypass became partial ring roads.
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Re: Unbypassed Towns?

Post by Glenn A »

Whitehaven, Cumbria, is the most obvious example near me. The A595 Loop Road was built in the 1930s to by pass the town centre and to create work in a very depressed area. What happened was private housing was built along the road in the late 1930s and access roads to new estates in the 1960s and 70s caused even more traffic. To the south of the Loop Road, a by pass of Hensingham was built in 1991, which marginally sped up journeys, but the whole A595 can be bumper to bumper at peak times and any early advantages have long been lost. For years, councillors and local MPs have called for a relief road for the whole of Whitehaven.
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Re: Unbypassed Towns?

Post by KeithW »

B1040 wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 17:07
Huntingdon is a good example.
Chelmsford, Colchester, Ipswich and Lincoln are all towns I know where the '30s bypass became partial ring roads.
Well Huntingdon an example because the council wanted the viaduct taking down, hardly surprising as apart from dominating the town it was crumbling away.

In the case of Chelmsford the original bypass is still where it was built but the town has expanded beyond it.
The same happened with Colchester where a new northern bypass was built to carry the A12

As for Lincoln all I can ask is what bypass ?
I drove through the city many time in the 70's and 80's and dont recall even a hint of a bypass, the A1102 was thwring road for the main route but was downgraded to B1308 when the A46 Northern bypass was built in around 1990

As I recall it was also the 1990's before the route through Brayford Pool was opened up by the regeneration of the old dock and industrial area, certainly in the 1980's heading south from the Humber Bridge you still had to trek around the ring road and over the bridge to pick up the A15 or A46.
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Re: Unbypassed Towns?

Post by KeithW »

There were a number of roads built on Teesside during the 1930's largely as unemployment relief projects which have been bypassed.

On the south bank of the Tees the A1085 from South Bank to Redcar was built for this purpose and in a sense succeeded as it opened up the area for development of the Lackenby Steel Works and Teesport. The new A174 has bypassed this in its turn and its now just a secondary road.

North of the Tees the original Billingham bypass started the same way but the rapid growth of the Billingham chemical works accelerated the project as it was producing products such as precursors for explosives and synthetic high octane petrol. With the rise of the Nazis this became a high priority. Billingham is now on its second bypass which was widened to D3 between Norton and Wolviston in 2021.
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Re: Unbypassed Towns?

Post by jabbaboy »

Gateshead/Newcastle centre, take your pick which.

Heading from the East to the West you could miss both via going over the Tyne Bridge then along Askew Road. Now Askew Road is buses online you either have to plow through Newcastle via the Central Station (quickest) or through Gateshead via Charles Street through the centre.
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Re: Unbypassed Towns?

Post by WHBM »

Glenn A wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 18:13 Whitehaven, Cumbria, is the most obvious example near me. The A595 Loop Road was built in the 1930s to by pass the town centre and to create work in a very depressed area. What happened was private housing was built along the road in the late 1930s and access roads to new estates in the 1960s and 70s caused even more traffic.
In passing, it is surprising how many places that are regularly described as "desperately depressed" from the 1920s-30s have such substantial amounts of new private housing (commonly, though not always, semi-detached), built and sold through exactly that era, much of it sold to people who had never bought a house before.
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Re: Unbypassed Towns?

Post by Rob590 »

jabbaboy wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 19:15 Gateshead/Newcastle centre, take your pick which.

Heading from the East to the West you could miss both via going over the Tyne Bridge then along Askew Road. Now Askew Road is buses online you either have to plow through Newcastle via the Central Station (quickest) or through Gateshead via Charles Street through the centre.
I was thinking of the Gateshead example and was wondering if we may see more cases where active travel/sustainable travel measures start to push cars off through roads and some of these 'internal bypasses' back onto older roads, as a deterrent to travel.
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Re: Unbypassed Towns?

Post by Alderpoint »

Harrogate.
Well maybe only partially.
N/S is not bypassed. E/W is not bypassed.
There is a bit of an E/S bypass, but that's not very useful.
But then Harrogate is full of Nimbys, so there will never be one, despite having been discussed for over 30 years.
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Re: Unbypassed Towns?

Post by Glenn A »

WHBM wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 19:57
Glenn A wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 18:13 Whitehaven, Cumbria, is the most obvious example near me. The A595 Loop Road was built in the 1930s to by pass the town centre and to create work in a very depressed area. What happened was private housing was built along the road in the late 1930s and access roads to new estates in the 1960s and 70s caused even more traffic.
In passing, it is surprising how many places that are regularly described as "desperately depressed" from the 1920s-30s have such substantial amounts of new private housing (commonly, though not always, semi-detached), built and sold through exactly that era, much of it sold to people who had never bought a house before.
All I can think of is those that had a job and were in middle class professions had the money to buy a new semi detached house. The other side of Whitehaven still had some terrible, squalid slums that weren't removed until 1939.
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Re: Unbypassed Towns?

Post by ajuk »

NICK 647063 wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 14:09 Cullompton is fully bypassed by the M5! As it takes the through traffic away!
Traffic wanting to go to many villages between Cullompton and Exeter and even as far as the outskirts of Exeter such as Pinhoe now has to go through the town, when the Cullompton bypass was first opened before the M5, there were exits at both ends.
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Re: De-bypassed Towns?

Post by Peter350 »

Benson, Oxfordshire only had a purpose-built bypass for 10 years before WW2, obliterated with the expansion of the airfield. Nowadays the replacement route uses roads which mostly existed before the construction of that bypass.
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Re: Unbypassed Towns?

Post by multiraider2 »

B1040 wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 17:07 :wink:
Mapper89062 wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 16:21

Anyway, while it's pretty rare for a bypass to be removed if it hasn't been replaced, I suppose Huntingdon is sort of going to be debypassed with the removal of the viaduct, since you'll now have to join local roads through the town to cross the railway line, and the new route goes miles away from Huntingdon.

Another take on this could be towns that have outgrown a bypass, resulting in the bypass not really bypassing the town anymore. There are dozens of those, mostly those built in the 1930s.
Huntingdon is a good example.
Chelmsford, Colchester, Ipswich and Lincoln are all towns I know where the '30s bypass became partial ring roads.
Add Croydon to that list and in that case the 1920s. It was proposed/under construction on the MOT 1922-3 map here and of course now a nightmare of IKEA, B&Q, et al. Now where's that M23 gone?
Last edited by multiraider2 on Sun Jan 23, 2022 11:14, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Unbypassed Towns?

Post by KeithW »

WHBM wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 19:57 In passing, it is surprising how many places that are regularly described as "desperately depressed" from the 1920s-30s have such substantial amounts of new private housing (commonly, though not always, semi-detached), built and sold through exactly that era, much of it sold to people who had never bought a house before.
That is because land prices and house prices are much lower than in the South East and home counties, this was part of the reason I moved back to the North East from South Cambridgeshire when I retired in 2016. There is a rather nice 3 bedroom 2 bathroom detached house with en suite in Yarm on the market for £220,000. When I bought my first semi in Marton during the 1980's the mortgage was cheaper than renting it. I was horrified by the price of accommodation in London when I moved there in 1985.

The other factor is that until the economic collapse of the mid 1970's the North East was doing rather well. On Teesside alone 20,000 jobs disappeared almost overnight as the old heavy industrial giants such as Foster Wheeler, Head Wrightson, the shipyards at Haverton Hill, Grays and Smiths dock all went bust between 1975 and 1980 as with rampant inflation they lost their overseas markets. Even the nationalised Dorman Long at Clay Lane collapsed. In Hartlepool Richardson Westgarth and the British Steel works closed along with the shipyards and of course most of the pits in the Durham coalfield closed in the 1960's. When I left school in 1968 I had 5 firm offers of employment, by 1978 I had to move south to find work. At that I got off lightly as my brother and brother in law went off to work 2 months on and 2 weeks off in the middle east.
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Re: Unbypassed Towns?

Post by Glenn A »

KeithW wrote: Sun Jan 23, 2022 11:07
WHBM wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 19:57 In passing, it is surprising how many places that are regularly described as "desperately depressed" from the 1920s-30s have such substantial amounts of new private housing (commonly, though not always, semi-detached), built and sold through exactly that era, much of it sold to people who had never bought a house before.
That is because land prices and house prices are much lower than in the South East and home counties, this was part of the reason I moved back to the North East from South Cambridgeshire when I retired in 2016. There is a rather nice 3 bedroom 2 bathroom detached house with en suite in Yarm on the market for £220,000. When I bought my first semi in Marton during the 1980's the mortgage was cheaper than renting it. I was horrified by the price of accommodation in London when I moved there in 1985.

The other factor is that until the economic collapse of the mid 1970's the North East was doing rather well. On Teesside alone 20,000 jobs disappeared almost overnight as the old heavy industrial giants such as Foster Wheeler, Head Wrightson, the shipyards at Haverton Hill, Grays and Smiths dock all went bust between 1975 and 1980 as with rampant inflation they lost their overseas markets. Even the nationalised Dorman Long at Clay Lane collapsed. In Hartlepool Richardson Westgarth and the British Steel works closed along with the shipyards and of course most of the pits in the Durham coalfield closed in the 1960's. When I left school in 1968 I had 5 firm offers of employment, by 1978 I had to move south to find work. At that I got off lightly as my brother and brother in law went off to work 2 months on and 2 weeks off in the middle east.
The lazy answer is to blame Thatcher for the North East's economic decline, but the coal industry away from the coast had died out by the mid seventies, shipbuilding, steel and chemicals were showing signs of decline and losing workers, and the region's unemployment rate more than doubled in the seventies. Then in the early eighties, unemployment more than doubled again as chemicals, shipbuilding, steel and heavy engineering saw an even sharper decline than in the seventies
However, back to roads, Hartlepool isn't by passed as such with a road around the town. Yes the A689 was made D2 in the early seventies, but this still passes through the town.
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Re: Unbypassed Towns?

Post by KeithW »

Glenn A wrote: Sun Jan 23, 2022 11:21
The lazy answer is to blame Thatcher for the North East's economic decline, but the coal industry away from the coast had died out by the mid seventies, shipbuilding, steel and chemicals were showing signs of decline and losing workers, and the region's unemployment rate more than doubled in the seventies. Then in the early eighties, unemployment more than doubled again as chemicals, shipbuilding, steel and heavy engineering saw an even sharper decline than in the seventies
However, back to roads, Hartlepool isn't by passed as such with a road around the town. Yes the A689 was made D2 in the early seventies, but this still passes through the town.
The A19 is the bypass, if you are heading from Teesside to Peterlee, Sunderland ,Jarrow, Alnwick and points north that is the route you take which is why upgrades to the route have taken place. The A689 is the road that connects Hartlepool to the A19 and A1(M) while the A179 is the route to the A19 near Sheraton. Until the new A19 route over the Tees opened the road ran through Crathorne, Yarm, Stockton and Billingham to Wolviston north of which the A19 got bypasses of Peterlee, Easington and Sunderland in the 1970's and 1980's. I recall using the GSJ at Peterlee just after it opened. At that time the A689 GSJ was on the old Billingham bypass aka the Wolviston Road north of Billingham which was downgraded to a roundabout. If you know what to look for you can see where the flyover was here.
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Re: De-bypassed Towns?

Post by orudge »

I guess both Dundee and Aberdeen were bypassed, then grew beyond their respective bypasses. Aberdeen has finally got a new one, Dundee looks unlikely to.
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