B7010

The B7010 is a back route between Shotts and Fauldhouse that provides an alternative to the A71.

The route begins just outside Shotts at a junction with the B717 and heads into the centre of Stane on Main Street. There are a handful of shops mixed in with the houses here before the route curves round to head south between modern housing estates. The initial slight gradient becomes a noticeable hill as the road curves round the bend. It then levels out on Stane Road, and briefly emerges from the town into green fields. However, the route then TOTSOs to the left (the unclassified road ahead leads to the A71) onto Springhill Road and is soon back in the urban area of Springhill. After passing a handful of older houses and some shops, the route runs between monotonous lines of grey local authority housing, climbing steadily up a long straight. Eventually, the edge of the village is reached, with a new housing develpment growing on the left and open fields to the right. This is not an agricultural landscape, however, rather an industrial wilderness reclaimed by nature. Coal mining was the main source of industry in the area in the past, and the landscape was shaped by the pits and the waste bings.

Narrow, winding and hilly, the road gives good views over the countryside as it heads east, broken only by the odd pit bing or earthwork. After about a mile it reaches another TOTSO, where the B715 continues ahead to cross the A71 at Headless Cross, while the B7010 turns off to the left. The road remains rural but the landscape opens up and becomes more bleak and moor-like, broken only by a little scrub woodland. At length, a row of houses stands to the left, and the route wiggles round a tight dogleg to pass under a railway and enter Fauldhouse on Shotts Road, quickly becoming Main Street. Many of the houses are set back behind greens, or back onto the road, but most face directly onto Main Street, with older houses as the route heads east into the small town centre. There are a scattering of shops as the route climbs a little to a mini roundabout, where it keeps right, passing a row of businesses, with another row further along past the church.

Fauldhouse Town Centre

Passing through the town centre brings traffic calming with plenty of humps. The B7015 turns off to the right, and passes around the far side of a small park, while the B7010 turns further north east onto Lanrigg Road. Like Springhill, this is lined with a fairly monotonous line of older local authority housing as it climbs steadily out of town. It rather abruptly enters an avenue of young trees, and then emerges into a more rural area, with a parallel cycle route behind the hedge to the left. After passing a small, new growth pine plantation the road straightens up, with rough fields to the right, and the site of a vast old opencast mine to the north. A series of short straights curve the route round to reach Longridge on Fauldhouse Road. A short run though some new build housing an a pair of lone speed humps brings the route to an end at a T-Junction with the A706.

History

The road was originally unclassified but had gained its number by 1927 when it is shown on the revised MOT map. The only significant change since then is the minor realignment in Stane. The route originally wound along Knoll Croft Road, but between 1971 and 1974 Springhill Road was extended west to meet Stane Road at the current T junction, and the B7010 diverted.