Shirebrook <-> M1 link
If I understand it well- first plans for a direct road connecting Shirebrook with motorway M1 were drawn decades ago. M1 section between Rugby and Leeds was finished about 1968 and back then Shirebrook was one of the jewels of the coal industry. It was natural that vibrant town would need a good link to “queen on motorways”.
Decades past, governments changed hands, PM comes and goes and Shirebrook still dreams about M1 link. Since I moved in and take interest in local issues- I’m hearing about this investment from all sides of the political spectrum. Labour dream about it, independents talk about it, and now even conservative MP Mark Fletcher ask about it in Westminster:
I’m a realist. I was, I am and I will be pragmatic in my judgements and choices. When I look at things I use my knowledge and life experience- not feelings. That’s why I decided to write this piece with my opinion about this subject. And my opinion is simply: M1 link to Shirebrook will never happen. It is a dream and it will stay a dream no matter how many people want it. Reason? Cost. Plain and simply.
COST OF ROAD
I researched the cost of building a new road in the UK and I found a quite comprehensive study from Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College London from 2006 (link at the end of the article). According to the authors of this study: cost of 1 mile of the single carriageway is 2 000 000 pounds per mile. Dual carriageway cost 4 540 000 per mile.
This study is quite old and it’s hard to find any information about inflation in road building sector so we have to use average inflation of 3% per year. 14 years by 3% is another 40% on top of price in 2006. So 1 mile will cost Taxpayer about 2 800 000 per single carriageway and about 6 000 000 per dual.
ROUNDABOUTS ON THE WAY
10 mile long M1 link will probably require extra roundabouts on the way. Yet another cost… I researched it and the cost of single roundabout varies from 350 000 pounds to 2 300 000 pounds. If you look at the map illustrating article you can easily see that this new road will require at least two new roundabouts.
JUNCTION 29
A most viable option is to connect Shirebrook with Junction 29. At the moment J29 has 6 exits. 6! Everyone who travels somewhere through J29 knows that in daytime this junction in extremely busy. Even without breakdowns- entering Motorway around 9AM takes up to 20 minutes in a huge queue. There is simply no space to add another exit so the road from Shirebrook would have to connect with the existing road- adding only more traffic to already jammed junction. We could try to connect Shirebrook with less busy J29A- distance is slightly longer but the terrain is more hilly and difficult.
LAND
Between Shirebrook and junction 29 of M1, we have rough, uneven, hilly terrain. Distance as crows flies is about 10 miles. Even if we chose to build a single carriageway- the cost of road alone will reach about 28 000 000. I would assume that when Government draw first plans to build this link, someone blocked sales of land that would be used to do it but to be honest I don’t believe that in 50 years since then all of this land is still in taxpayer’s hands. Unlikely. So we need to add more money to buy out the land. How much? I doubt there is anyone who could tell that at this point.
IS IT WORTH IT?
In my opinion- no. Shirebrook is a small town. Only one big employer here is Sportsdirect and it looks like they adapted to reality. Residents are used to the current situation. I travel a lot and I would rather invest in easing traffic in town then choose to spend millions on the road that we can live without.
We need to rebuild double T junction near the cemetery. We should widen Main Street near Central Drive. We could use new road connecting south Shirebrook with north Mansfield or Mansfield Woodhouse. We could use a few speeding cameras or automatic bollard system on the entrance to Market Square. We could use speeding cameras on Langwith Road. We could use a bigger building for our NHS surgery, we could use new dentists, we could… list of things that we could do with 30 million pounds is long. Don’t get me wrong- M1 link would be awesome but I think we could way more good with this money inside town than outside.
Sylwester Zwierzynski info@shirebrook247.com
http://wehearthart.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Road-costs.pdf
