£40m plan to end Buttington black spot

The Welsh Government is to push ahead with a new multi-million pound main road into Welshpool to end one of the country’s most notorious accident black spots.

An average of 25 accidents happen in and around Buttington every year, many being fatal, and plans have been mooted to solve the problem for the last 15 years.

But there now appears to be real momentum in the corridors of power behind a proposal for a new road to be built from Buttington to Wollaston Cross, cutting out the dreaded Crossing and other trouble points and knocking 21% off travel time.

The new optimism follows this week’s Welsh Government response to the Powys Local Growth Zones Report which included three big transport projects among its ambitious strategy to revitalise Mid Wales. The other two are Newtown’s long awaited by-pass and the hourly train service.

The report states: “The Welsh Government ensures that key infrastructure projects, as recognised within the National Transport Plan (including the proposed Newtown bypass, the hourly service on the Cambrian Line, and road improvements on the A458 between Buttington Cross and Wollaston Cross) are taken forward as a matter of priority.”

With work on Newtown’s by-pass set to start in late 2014, the report says that hourly Cambrian rail services should be introduced at around the same time with the new road into Welshpool earmarked for post-2015.

However, with a quarter of the proposed route located across the border, Wales will need to negotiate with England’s Highways Authority to cough up roughly £10m towards an anticipated £40m cost.

The last project update seen by mywelshpool showed that “We (Welsh Government) are discussing with the DfT / Highways Agency to resolve funding issues for the English section of the scheme”.

Four routes were initially submitted for consideration, with the yellow route favoured:

The proposed route

From Fronhaul farm, the Yellow route bears north-east via a long straight to pass south of Middletown through a 15m deep cutting on the north side of Breidden Terrace. From there it turns to run parallel with the curve of the railway to Plas-y-Court before rejoining the existing road at Wollaston Court.