Thomas Buchanan (DUP)

5. asked the Minister for Regional Development for his assessment of the level of concern in the farming community about the proposed A5 route.       (AQO 249/10)

Conor Murphy (Sinn Féin)

I am fully aware of the concern in the farming community that has arisen as a result of the announcement of the preferred route for the proposed A5 dual carriageway. That concern is understandable, given the scale of the project and the number of farmers and other landowners involved.

Roads Service and its project engineers, Mouchel, are nearing completion of their first round of landowner visits. Those meetings have clarified a number of issues for affected landowners, and I understand that they have gone some way to reducing concern in the farming community.

Thomas Buchanan (DUP)

I thank the Minister for his response. However, I ask the Minister whether those concerns are being fully addressed and whether the voice of the farming community is being heard. Is there the potential to move the roadway beyond the 20-metre buffer zone in order to prevent the separation of dwelling houses from farmyards?

Conor Murphy (Sinn Féin)

As the Member rightly said, there is a 20-metre buffer zone along the line of the preferred route. There has been particular concern about this project. That is inevitable and unsurprising, and I understand it fully because this is the biggest road project that we have ever undertaken. However, it follows a pattern similar to that of other major road projects in the past 10 to 15 years, all of which have involved land acquisition and, in some cases, property acquisition and discussions and negotiations about compensation and access for farms along the way.

Routing a major road such as this through somebody’s land is bound to cause upset; that is accepted. There is scope to alter the route after discussion with landowners. However, the Member must realise — I am sure that he does — that, if the route was to be altered significantly, its line would be thrown off, and that would affect another landowner down the road. Therefore, there is a limit to the amount of alteration. Part of the aim of the negotiations that are going on individually with all the landowners along the way is to secure the best possible solution for those landowners and the road project.

Conor Murphy (Sinn Féin)

I assure the Member that careful consideration will be given to all aspects of the project. The preferred route has been set. There is some flexibility in it. The Member has raised the issue of the funding of our roads before; I presume that that is what he is referring to in relation to Ballygawley to Aughnacloy. The current upgrading of that route was part of a Design, Build, Finance and Operate (DBFO) package that also included the dual carriageway in and around Newry, a number of junctions on the A1 between Newry and Sprucefield, the dualling of the A4 between Dungannon and Ballygawley, and the improvements to the A4 and Annaghilla Road towards Enniskillen, just west of the Ballygawley roundabout.

The cost of that entire package is £320 million; the Tullyvar element is only approximately 2% of that. The decision taken by Roads Service not to renegotiate to remove that element from the package was the correct one, given the time that it took to put that complete package together.

Other factors that influenced the decision to keep the Tullyvar section as it is being built are that the land had been vested, compensation had been agreed with a number of landowners, and the A5 Tullyvar section will be in service for six years from 2009 to 2015 before the A5 is completed.

Kieran Deeny (Independent)

I welcome the Minister’s comments. I also welcome the plans for the A5 from the points of view of infrastructure and safety. First, is there a time frame for construction to start on the A5? Secondly, with regard to safety, will the proposed dual carriageway of the A5 be based on that of the A4, with no right turns off or onto the carriageway?

Conor Murphy (Sinn Féin)

There is a lot of design to be done, negotiation and discussion to go on and compensation issues to be sorted out with landowners. Inevitably, there will be a public inquiry in which people in the area will have a chance to put forward their point of view again and to have it heard by an inspector. However, the intended construction date is 2012 to 2015.

I confirm that it is a high-grade dual carriageway, which does not involve crossing over its central median. The junctions will be grade separated to almost motorway standard. Motorway standard involves a more substantial take of land than a dual carriageway does, and that would have created even more problems for the local farming community than this project has.