Relief road plans get green light

ANEW £30m road has been given the green light. The Poynton Relief Road will be a 3km link between London Road at Adlington and the forthcoming Manchester Airport Relief Road (A6MARR).

Plans for the scheme, to boost transport links to Macclesfield and cut traffic through Poynton, were approved by Cheshire East Council at a meeting on Tuesday, January 10.

Councillor Howard Murray, who represents Poynton, described the scheme as ‘long overdue.’

He said: “The Poynton Relief Road should be renamed the ‘Macclesfield survival route.’ Without this road the town doesn’t have much of a future. This road is as critical to bringing traffic to Macclesfield as it is to providing relief to Poynton and surrounding areas.”

The new road will run from a junction of the A6 south 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.

There will be two pedestrian bridges and a cycle way. The scheme, a joint application by Cheshire East and Stockport councils, includes improvements to junctions at Adlington crossroads, Bonis Hall Lane in Prestbury and Well Lane at Butley.

But the meeting heard serious concerns from members of each of those communities about the potential impact of traffic.

Highways officers pledged to monitor the impact of the new road on local roads and look at improvements if they are needed.

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.’

The strategic planning committee was told that the new road will cut traffic passing through Poynton by half. Construction will take 14 months and could start as early as 2018.