It has been a common complaint that the main route on the island of Ireland, Belfast to Dublin, involves traffic leaving Belfast along the M1 and then going off at a sliproad, and crawling round two roundabouts before continuing on the A1 dual-carriageway towards Newry and Dublin. The current arrangement uses two related junctions (7 and 8) at Sprucefield which also serves the western end of Lisburn city, a major shopping centre and (since 2004) a large retail park. This scheme will see a bypass constructed as shown in the map below (based on the land protection corridor outlined in the BMAP Plan Amendment Number One, 2006). It will NOT provide sliproads to and and from the west - traffic in this direction must continue to use junction 8. The scheme was given the formal go-ahead in the document "Investment Delivery Plan for Roads" published in April 2008.

Proposed link at Sprucefield shown in purple.

Note that, because it leads inevitably onto the M1, at least part of the new link road MUST be a motorway in order to meet the legal requirements of a motorway junction. This means that Northern ireland will get its first new stretch of motorway since the M3 was completed in 1998. I have drawn sliproads on the map at the point where the link road joins the existing A1, as this is likely to be the arrangement here. At a minimum, the new stretch of motorway road would have to begin here as it is the last opportunity for non-motorway traffic to leave the road.

The scheme will continue as a "high quality" dual-carriageway as far as Hillsborough where there is currently a roundabout - which in a few years' time will be the last remaining at-grade roundabout on the entire Belfast to Dublin route. This roundabout will be grade-separated as part of the scheme. When combined with the sections of the A1 currently being upgraded near Newry, this scheme will mean that motorists will be able to travel non-stop from York Street in north Belfast to Dublin without having to stop once.

There has been much misinformation about how this scheme will affect the existing junction, most notably some pure nonsense published in the Irish News on 2 August 2006 about how junction 8 will become "redundant". In fact, junction 8 will become even more important as time goes on for a number of reasons:

1. Junction 8 will the main access point to Lisburn and Sprucefield from either direction on the M1
2. When the Knockmore Link road is built, connecting junction 8 directly to Knockmore Road in west Lisburn, it will become a principal access point for west Lisburn.
3. Traffic going from the western end of the M1 to the A1, and from the A1 to the M1 westbound will still have to use junction 8 to get through this junction.

Possible future look of A1/M1 junction

The additional two sliproads to be built on the M1 as part of this scheme will mean that there are eight sliproads either joining or leaving a one mile stretch of the M1. This is too many and will lead to dangerous weaving movements on the motorway and conflicts particularly eastbound between three waves of traffic joining at junction 8, junction 7 and the new junction in the space of a few hundred metres. With the Knockmore Link due to be built, which will provide another access into west Lisburn, traffic on the existing Hillsborough Road leading into Lisburn will fall. Therefore it would seem like a very good idea to completely close junction 7. In fact, not closing junction 7 would lead to this section of the M1 becoming famous for having too many junctions far too close together. Junctions closer together even than a mile would be frowned upon by most motorway designers.

The map below shows how the Sprucefield junction might look in this scenario around 2015. As you can see, I have hypothetically labelled the link road the A1(M) and closed the existing junction 7, re-using its number on the new junction. Local Lisburn traffic would use junction 8 and either go north along the new Knockmore Link road or south and east to the existing Hillsborough Road.

There have been suggestions that the A1-M1 link should be further west than Sprucefield (see this news story on 29 Sep 2006 pay to view). This idea is a resurrection of the 1960s plan for the M11 which would have left the M1 a couple of miles west of Lisburn and gone to Newry. While the point is less significant since the A1 was upgraded instead, the idea still deserves serious consideration.

Updates

29 Aug 2009: According to Roads Service's report to Lisburn City Council in June 2009, they have now appointed Scott Wilson as consultants to develop proposals for this scheme. It should be noted that the scheme may not follow the "road protection corridor" that I used for my mockup maps above, so could be completely different. The say: "The commission will require the consideration of a range of options and an evaluation of all of the viable options available for capacity enhancement along this route. Proposals would take account of future development proposals in the area and any detailed proposals developed for the road improvement would be subject to public scrutiny through the normal statutory processes."

12 Jan 2009: Roads Service issued a leaflet about the scheme in November. The leaflet doesn't really say anything new, but it does confirm Roads Service's committment to the scheme and suggests that the BMAP "road protection corridor" that is used for the maps above still seems to be valid. The leaflet estimates that the scheme will be completed during the period 2014-2018.