Toome to Castledawson Dualling Scheme
The proposed road is a high standard dual carriageway. It has no private accesses, no central reserve crossovers and with the minimum of junctions. This standard of dual carriageway has considerable benefits for the road user.
The scheme
would lead traffic onto a 6.7 kilomertre long dual carriageway, constructed between Toome and Castledawson. The existing single carriageway Hillhead Road between The Creagh and the western end of the Castledawson Bypass would be retained to provide local access to The Creagh and the surrounding area. The proposed scheme would:
- Deviate from the end of the Toome Bypass, approximately 500 metres east of The Creagh Roundabout;
- Continue offline, to the north of Aughrim Hill;
- Rejoin the Castledawson Bypass at Brough Road
- Continue as online dualling (a new carriageway built alongside and to the south of the existing Castledawson Bypass) to the Castledawson Roundabout.
New grade separated junctions at The Creagh, Deerpark Road and Hillhead Road and a grade junction at Bellshill Road would connect the existing road network to the new road.
Roads Service has carried out extensive research and consultation to ensure that the new dual carriageway between Toome and Castledawson does not upset the ecologically important wetlands around Lough Beg. These wetlands are nationally and internationally protected and regularly support over 20,000 waterfowl including over wintering Whooper Swans and Bewick's Swans. The Whooper Swan feeding habitat affecetd by the road is entirely outside the nationally and internationally protected wetlands and measured against the vast Lough Neagh and Lough Beg wetland the area lost is very tiny.