Tag Archives: Dorset
Holes Bay Relief Road construction
Gillingham Relief Road 1991
I love the little brochures they put together for these things…
On Dorset roads in 1963
Stalbridge Cross should stay where it is, early 1990s?
Proponents of moving the cross pointed out that motorists needed protecting against the cross colliding with their vehicles; town residents countered that it provides useful traffic calming, deflecting traffic around it as it enters the A357 High Street. Stalbridge’s ancient market cross did indeed always stay where it was, gaining some serious wooden bollards in the early-mid 1990s. Don’t think this cutting, which I guess is from the Blackmore Vale Magazine, included a date, but I suppose it was a little before those bollards turned up.
Rodwell Relief Road, 1991
Having built the A354 Weymouth Town Centre Relief Road in the mid 1980s, and intending to extend it north as the Weymouth Relief Road, laurels couldn’t be rested on. Things turned south, as proposals were made to lay a similarly big road across the old Portland Railway through Rodwell — now instead the lovely, calm, green Rodwell rail trail walking and cycling path, thankfully!
Weymouth Relief Road: Non-technical Summary, 1994
The zombie Weymouth Relief Road at least provides a nice illustration of how council comms developed over the decades, from the spartan monochrome typo-filled typewriter texts of the 1970s and 80s, through the gaudy desktop published factsheets of the 1990s and more cleverly designed leaflets of the 2000s to today’s website.
Stalbridge Traffic Management Consultation, 2000
By 2000, the new realism was beginning to sink in and the bypasses were on the shelf. Instead, it’s all tinkering with the S106 contributions. This one went ahead, but some of the pavement buildouts were quietly rolled back a few years later, as far as I know without consultation.
Shaftesbury Outer Bypass, 1991
Shaftesbury was one of the first Dorset towns to get a bypass. I didn’t even realise there ever was a plan to give it a second bypass until I stumbled upon this status record.