A585 Little Singleton Bypass and Further A585 Improvements?

[Chris56000]

. . .National Highways says the new A585 Little Singleton Bypass opens to traffic as a 70 mph dual carriageway on Monday morning, but two questions puzzle me :–

1) Is there no scheme to upgrade the substandard A585 past Thistleton and Esprick to dual–carriageway as far as the M55 junction 3 roundabout?

2) Any particular reason why the Little Singleton Bypass was planned as dual carriageway? I'd have thought that single 7.3 m with hard strips, as per the older improved Amounderness Way past Thornton Cleveleys and on towards Fleetwood would have been adequate!

Chris Williams

[Bryn666]

. . .National Highways says the new A585 Little Singleton Bypass opens to traffic as a 70 mph dual carriageway on Monday morning, but two questions puzzle me :–

1) Is there no scheme to upgrade the substandard A585 past Thistleton and Esprick to dual–carriageway as far as the M55 junction 3 roundabout?

2) Any particular reason why the Little Singleton Bypass was planned as dual carriageway? I'd have thought that single 7.3 m with hard strips, as per the older improved Amounderness Way past Thornton Cleveleys and on towards Fleetwood would have been adequate!

Chris Williams

The rationale was to bypass the rather posh houses on the existing A585 by ensuring that the road also covers any future growth at the Port of Fleetwood and housing demands.

Amounderness Way was designed to be widened but this is probably unlikely now. Fixing the length down to the M55 will be in the cards in the future as part of the ongoing plans to expand the urban area around Blackpool.

[Mapper89062]

I'm pretty sure I remember reading previously that the intention is to detrunk the A585 now that this improvement is complete, is that still planned?

[wrinkly]

I'm pretty sure I remember reading previously that the intention is to detrunk the A585 now that this improvement is complete, is that still planned?

Wan't that just speculation?

In the previous thread, Haydn1971 expressed surprise it was still trunk, I agreed and Bryn speculated about a detrunking agreement.

viewtopic.php?t=36499

[Truvelo]

HA, as it was then, often made improvements to roads just befors detrunking.

[wrinkly]

HA, as it was then, often made improvements to roads just befors detrunking.

A number of roads were identified for detrunking in the exercise of the end of the 1990s, and then actually detrunked over the next few years following the completion of schemes on them, but offhand I can't remember much detrunking since then (except of lengths of road bypassed by schemes, obviously).

[owen b]

I have a recollection that maybe 10 or 15 years ago various fairly short road links to ports and airports were added to the SRN (Strategic Road Network) but a quick internet search doesn't find anything relevant. The road link that rings bells with me in this context is the A5036 Port of Liverpool link. Possibly the A585 to Fleetwood remains part of the SRN on this basis.

[traffic-light-man]

The old alignment will be de-trunked (unsurprisingly) with all assets passed to Lancs, but NH are also completing some changes to that route as part of the de-trunking arrangements.

I don't think I've heard anything about the whole route being de-trunked, though.

[Mapper89062]

Here's where I saw the suggestion that the A585 might get detrunked, back on the RIS2 thread a few years ago:

An interesting side note on page 37 covers some orders to trunk and de-trunk certain sections of road.
Locally it's good to see the A453 by East Midlands Airport being looked at and hopefully eventually upgraded.
Also, it mentions possibly trunking M65 10-14 in RP3.

●Trunking: The A453 from the M1 to East
Midlands Airport (the UK’s second busiest
airport for freight traffic), and the
A13/A1014 from the end of the trunked
A13 through to the recently-opened
London Gateway Port, with a view to
transfer to Highways England.
● Detrunking: The A585 from the M55 to
Fleetwood, following completion of its
RIS1 improvement project, the A40 from
the Gloucester Ring Road to Boxbush,
and the NEC Eastway, with a view to
transferring these roads to Lancashire
County Council, Gloucestershire County
Council and Solihull Metropolitan
Borough Council respectively.

Other discussions with local highway
authorities are at an earlier stage, including
potentially trunking the M65 between
Junctions 10 and 14 pending the findings of
the Central Pennines study described later.
We will explore these and further changes to
the extent of the network that could be
implemented for the start of RP3.

Then again there hasn't been any progress on detrunking the A40 or trunking the A453.

[wrinkly]

Thanks Mapper, I was unaware of that.