The Glasgow East End Regeneration Route (EERR) is a new road in the East End of Glasgow, Scotland. Currently under construction, the first phase was opened in 2011 with the second phase planned to open in 2012. A third phase from the Parkhead Bypass to Provan (M8/M80) is proposed.
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The history of the route goes back to the Glasgow Inner Ring Road (IRR) project of the 1960s. Owing largely to public opposition, only the northern and western flanks of this were ever built (what is now the central section of the M8). With the resultant chronic traffic congestion on the M8, only recently has the southern flank, the M74 Completion, finally opened after much local opposition. The construction of the EERR link will provide an 'inner circle' connecting the new section of M74 at Polmadie Road with the M8 at Provan.
The route of the EERR was was planned as early as 1965 by the then Glasgow Corporation after the Glasgow Inner Ring Road proposals originating from the Bruce Report, and was originally a continuation of the Stirling Motorway (which would be realised as the M80) which would have ran directly south beyond the interchange with the Monkland Motorway (the present-day M8) at Provan Gas Works. This road would have driven south towards the extended South Link Motorway (now the M74) and would have served as an "outer ring" for the city. As the appetite for further inner urban motorway developments waned in the 1970s following the backlash when the city centre section of the IRR was built in the late 1960s, the route evolved into an urban thoroughfare instead.
The M80, when eventually built in the early 1990s, now terminated at the Provan Gas Works interchange, whilst the Parkhead bypass, constructed in 1988 as part of the Parkhead Forge shopping development, was effectively the first section of the EERR. From Parkhead, the road would cut northward, through Hogarth Park, a former railway embankment now used as public open space. The new road would run between Haghill and Carntyne, under Edinburgh Road and Cumbernauld Road continuing along the old Caledonian Railway "Switchback" line to the M8/M80 junction at Provan.
Following the completion of the M74 in 2011, the next phase of the EERR involves completing the southern stretch which will finally meet the extended M74 at Junction 1A at Polmadie. No timescale for this development has yet been set.
A planning application was submitted in October 2005, but the 'winning' of being Host City for the 2014 Commonwealth Games has provided the necessary impetus. The first visible signs of the project commencing, was the removal of a former railway bridge adjacent to Dalmarnock railway station in April 2009.
Phase 1, from Polmadie Road to Shawfield Stadium opened in 2011 as part of the Oatlands development. Significant progress is now being made on phase 2, with visible signs of the new road running from Oatlands over Rutherglen Bridge, which will be upgraded to carry traffic over the River Clyde. The route continues through Dalmarnock in the East End of Glasgow, past the new stadia district and site of the Commonwealth Games 2014, Celtic Park and joining the existing road network at the Forge Retail Park/Gallowgate. A future phase 3, linking north from Parkhead Bypass to the M8 at Provan along a disused railway line has still to commence construction.
Phase 2 of the road is scheduled for opening in 2012.
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