The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
The northern section of the Spalding Western Relief Road is coming on apace and dominates the landscape when travelling along Spalding Road from Pinchbeck.
As we know, it will be many, many years before the middle section is started and so this new road will be closed to traffic for the foreseeable future.
Housing development in this area will commence from the fifth exit from the roundabout so the road over the railway will not be needed for this.
I recently enquired with Lincolnshire County Council as to whether the new road would be open to pedestrians and dog walkers/cyclists who could enjoy the views over Spalding from the top of the bridge and walk along Vernatts Drain, Two Plank Bridge etc.
Sadly, I have had a reply from the contractors to say that the new road and bridge will not be open to pedestrians at all and only the old route along Blue Gowt Lane to Two Plank Bridge will be reopened when the road is completed.
This seems to me to be a wasted opportunity to create something useful from this white elephant.
It would surely be easy to position concrete blocks at the roundabout end to prevent its use by cars etc until the housing development starts on the other side of the railway.
Come on LCC, give it a go!
Bill Lewis
Pinchbeck
