£30m Relief Road plan submitted to cut village traffic
PLANS have been submitted for the £30m Poynton Relief Road.
The 3km single carriageway will link the A6 with the forthcoming Manchester Airport Relief Road (A6MARR).
The scheme is jointly submitted by Cheshire East and Stockport councils and aims to boost transport links to Macclesfield and cut traffic through Poynton.
The route will run under the A5149 Chester Road, across the Woodford aerodrome runway, and past Adlington Business Park before connecting to a new roundabout junction to the west of the Travel Lodge.
Links from this roundabout would allow the relief road to connect into the A523 London Road and Adlington Golf Centre.
The scheme also includes improvements to the junction with the A523 London Road, including Adlington crossroads and Bonis Hall Lane junctions.
In its report set to go in front of the strategic planning board, officers said: ‘Poynton suffers from longstanding traffic congestion issues, largely due to the high level of demand for travel from areas in Cheshire East to Manchester and Stockport.
‘This has resulted in a range of negative impacts on the environment including air quality, noise levels and damage to the physical infrastructure of the Poynton Shared Space Scheme in the centre of Poynton.
‘The north of Cheshire East, in particular Macclesfield, suffers from poor connectivity with neighbouring towns such as Stockport and economic centres such as Manchester Airport and in the wider region.
‘The inadequate highway connections are con- sidered by CEC to be hampering development opportunities and to be restricting economic growth in the area’.
The scheme also includes two pedestrian bridges and a cycle way along the length of the road.
A new pond, marshy grassland and woodland habitat will protect great crested newts; Woodford Aerodrome will help ground nesting birds and brown hares, while badger tunnels will also be created along the route.
The plan ploughs through protected green belt, but the councils argue that the social, economic and environmental benefits of the scheme create ‘very special circumstances’.
Construction will take 14 months and could start as early as 2018.