'Dangerous' driveway and road layout possible causes of delay to opening of major relief road in Northampton

A ‘dangerous’ driveway and an adverse camber are possibly the reasons why a major multi-million pound relief road is still not open.

Sandy Lane, which sits between Duston and Harpole, has been closed to thousands of motorists since June last year for reconstruction works as part of wider plans to build hundreds of new homes in the area.

West Northamptonshire Council’s (WNC) highways board said Sandy Lane was going to be closed from June 2023 until March 31 2024.

It’s now been 16 days and counting since the Sandy Lane Relief Road should have been reopened to thousands of motorists.

WNC’s councillor Phil Larratt said on Friday (April 12): “We’ve been working as hard as we can to try and provide a temporary solution, to get the road open or at least partially open, but unauthorised work by the developers has made this difficult to achieve.”

However, councillor Larratt did not say which developer, between Vistry Group or Miller Homes, is at fault and what the ‘unauthorised works’ actually are.

This newspaper has asked Vistry, WNC and Miller Homes what the unauthorised works are and who is at fault. We are still waiting on replies from all three.

This newspaper visited the two businesses in Sandy Lane – Sandy Lane Plants and Threadgold scrap yard – to see if they could hazard a guess at what some of the issues may be.

Cheryl Barnett from Sandy Lane Plants said: “Everyone I speak to, whether it’s Miller Homes, Vistry or the council, I am told different, so I don’t really know what’s going on. The trouble is the goalposts keep moving because they couldn’t complete the SLRR in its entirety.

"The contractors have been fairly honest with us about the work they have been doing to try and get a temporary link in by using the existing Sandy Lane. They were very aware that it wouldn’t pass a safety audit. The safety audit has been done and they’re not opening the road because of an adverse camber and a blind driveway.”

A Threadgold spokeswoman commented on the adverse camber. She said: “It’s dangerous. There’s not enough space to get around it for our salvage vehicles.”

An adverse camber is a road design feature that involves the road surface sloping away from the inside of a bend, being higher on the inside of the bend than on the outside. Cheryl Barnett said she believes lorries would ‘tip over’ if they were to navigate it.

Sandy Lane resident Nick Chambers previously spoke of this ‘dangerous’ driveway constructed at his property.

Nick said: “We have no idea what’s going on, nobody seems to be able to give a straight story. We’ve reached out to Highways, West Northants Council, developers, the builders and everyone has got a different story.

"They’ve moved our driveway to effectively the brow of a hill so it’s inherently dangerous for us to leave our house on to Sandy Lane with lorries and cars travelling along it. What they’ve said is they will mitigate this with a 40mph speed limit, but in reality it’s inherently dangerous. Everybody who has seen it has said it’s so dangerous. But again, no one seems to want to take ownership of it and engage with us.

“No one’s giving a definitive answer around when Sandy Lane is opening, how dangerous it is, what they’re going to do to mitigate it. It’s a complete lack of communication around what’s going on. It’s really bad.”

Miller Homes, WNC and Vistry have been contacted for comment.

What’s more, according to One Network road data website, Sandy Lane is reportedly set to reopen on May 31. WNC has been asked if this is correct.