Don’t hold your breath in battle for by-pass around Ballynahinch

SIR, — ‘Ballynahinch will have a by-pass road, when the money becomes available’. Thus promised Brian Faulkner MP for East Down, in the mid 1950’s. The late Billy Fegan, grounds man at Millbridge cricket pitch, needn’t have worried about losing his job.

By the 1960’s, Faulkner had bigger fish to fry. As Stormont’s Minister of Commerce, he promoted new industries, including Goodyear, Enkalon, Cyril Lord Carpets etc, new towns at Craigavon and Antrim, new motorways to service them, with re-housing grants etc. Ballynahinch, relegated to the role of dormitory catchment area for workers commuting to Belfast, Bangor and Craigavon, began to decline. 

Subsequently, aggravated by continuing government neglect, IRA bombs and traffic blight, Ballynahinch further declined — and not just the town, but the area to the south of it. On the A24, Belfast to Newcastle road, there isn’t a single metre of dual carriageway.

Since the need for a Ballynahinch by-pass was agreed, some 65 years ago, the required construction money never ‘became available’. Instead there were countless meetings, millions of words (spoken and written), millions spent on endless plans and consultants, with millions of hours and litres of fuel uselessly wasted in traffic jams in Ballynahinch.

Presently, Stormont finds money for a conflict resolution centre at Maze prison. The DUP and Sinn Fein praise the UUP’s Environment Minister for ‘his constructive role’ in the Executive. So Instead of insisting on ‘a Ballynahinch by-pass now’, Danny Kennedy lamely repeats Brian Faulkner’s 65 year-old promise.

Yours etc.,

BRIAN ROONEY,

The Heights,

Downpatrick.