Bell criticises new Road Service proposals for a Lisburn bypass, favouring Belfast at Lisburn’s expense
Billy Bell MLA, Ulster Unionist Assembly Member for Lagan Valley, has said that the increase in Lisburn’s population to 111,500 makes it clearly the second city in the Province after Belfast.
“The latest figures from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency show that Lisburn now has a population of 111,500. This is 4,200 ahead of Londonderry which now has 107,300 inhabitants and which used to be considered the Province’s second city. That situation has now clearly changed in Lisburn’s favour.”
“In the past year 1,400 new people have come to live in the City of Lisburn. The city is growing at the rate of over 1% a year. This confirms that Lisburn with over 3,000 businesses has become a real economic hub.”
“It is vitally important that the City of Lisburn asserts its position as the Province’s second city and this includes insisting on its economic rights, especially with the close proximity of Belfast. We in Lisburn must be on our guard, especially over road and infrastructure proposals which could damage our city’s prosperity and favour Belfast at Lisburn’s expense.”
“Proposals by the Roads Service for a new slip road linking the A1 near Sprucefield with the M1 motorway after the Lisburn Sprucefield junction of the M1 represent a direct threat to the commercial prosperity of Lisburn City centre. This is nothing more than a Lisburn by-pass encouraging traffic to go on to Belfast and not go to either Lisburn City Centre of Sprucefield.”
“There can be no possible cost benefit from such a new road when a perfectly good existing road links the A1 before the Sprucefield Junction directly with the M! motorway in both the Craigavon and Belfast direction. How could the new road the roads service is proposing possibly be justified in the light of this ? It is a monumental waste of £45 million of the taxpayer’s money.”
“The Roads Service would be better served by spending their time working out how to link the new stadium and business centre at the Maze to the existing A1 / M1 link road, thus facilitating easy travel from the South of the Province and the Irish Republic to the Maze site.”