Dunmow: fresh hope for bypass

12:54pm Thursday 24th July 2008

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An earlier opening of a town’s much-needed north-west bypass could be on the cards, if highways officers have their way.

Tony Buston, a transport planner with Essex County Council, is on the case for a speedier opening of Dunmow’s half-built bypass.

The road would link the B1256 from the Tesco roundabout to the B184 on the edge of Little Easton.

Dunmow traffic management group chairman Wendy Barron said its opening would solve a lot of Dunmow’s traffic problems.

“It would save Dunmow being slowed up by traffic,” she said.

“Why can’t the county council take it on and build it and then charge the builder?”

Mr Buston said he was investigating all avenues to get an earlier opening of the bypass.

Under a legal agreement signed in 1993 Wickford Developments, which is building the Woodlands Park development, does not have to complete the bypass until two years after the 651st home has been occupied for nine months.

In 2003 Wickfords said house sales were approaching 300 but spokesman Cliff Neale said this week he did not know the current house sales figure.