| A30 road | |
|---|---|
| Route information | |
| Length: | 284 mi (457 km) |
| Major junctions | |
| East end: | London () |
|
A4 road |
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| West end: | Lands End () |
| Location | |
| Primary destinations: |
Staines Basingstoke Salisbury Yeovil Honiton Exeter Okehampton Launceston Bodmin Redruth Penzance |
| Road network | |
The 284 miles (457 km) A30 road from London to Land's End, used to provide the most direct route from London to the south west; more recently the M3 motorway and A303 road performs this function for much of the route and only parts of A30 now retain trunk road status. Places on the trunk section have been bypassed and sections of road widened.
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This section of the A30 passes through many towns and villages, including Staines, Camberley, Basingstoke, Salisbury, Shaftesbury, Sherborne, Yeovil and Honiton.
Much through traffic from the London area to south west England now uses the M3 motorway as far as Basingstoke then the A303 to Honiton where the route again joins the A30.
Between Basingstoke and Honiton, the A30 does not have trunk road status (except for short stretches around Salisbury, Shaftesbury and Yeovil) and is mostly single carriageway carrying local traffic.
This section is a major trunk road as far as Penzance[1], it is mostly dual carriageway; however there are several short sections of single carriageway.
To pass Exeter, through traffic can join the M5 motorway for three miles. West of Exeter, the A30 is dual carriageway through Devon and into Cornwall, bypassing Whiddon Down, Okehampton and Launceston. The dual carriageway continues through Cornwall to Bodmin Moor, where there is a two-mile stretch of single carriageway. The dual carriageway resumes until Carland Cross, after which there is a single carriageway stretch to Chiverton Cross.
From Chiverton Cross, the dual carriageway bypasses Redruth and Camborne. The A30 returns to single-carriageway west of Camborne, and a mid-1980s bypass takes the road around Hayle. Between Hayle and Penzance, the A30 returns to the original route and it passes through several villages. Approaching Penzance, the A30 briefly becomes a dual-carriageway once again. Once west of Penzance, the A30 becomes a more rural road running through or past several villages, before terminating at Lands End.
The original route of the A30 went from Basingstoke to Salisbury via Andover, but was rerouted to Stockbridge on 1st April, 1933. It originally ended in Penzance, being extended to Land's End in 1925.[2][3][4].
The 2.2 mile (3.5 km) long Honiton (£984,000) dual-carriageway bypass opened in early December 1966.[5] Between Honiton and Exeter, the A30 is dualled and at Exeter it merges briefly with the M5 motorway.
The Okehampton bypass which opened in the 1980s skirts the northern edge of Dartmoor in Devon.
The Hayle bypass was built in the mid 1980s.
The section between Honiton and Exeter in East Devon was dualled in 1999 as a dual carriageway giving quicker access to Exeter International Airport. This road was built under the 'Design Build Finance Operate" scheme by the private consortium 'Connect A30', who funded its construction, and who receive a 'shadow toll' from the government for each vehicle that travels along this section of the road.[6] Archaeological investigations during the work found a Roman cavalry garrison and later settlement at Pomeroy Wood.[7]
There were many protests by environmentalists against the damage caused by the building of this road, and the particular nature of the DBFO scheme, with a long-lasting occupation of sites on the planned route, focused around the village of Fairmile. Swampy became well-known for his part in this protest.
During 2006 one of the main bottlenecks on the road was removed when the Merrymeet roundabout between Okehampton and Exeter near Whiddon Down was replaced with a grade-separated junction and dual carriageway.[8]
Since the Bodmin to Indian Queens project was completed in June 2007 the A30 is now virtually entirely dualled between Exeter and the A30/A39 junction at Carland Cross near Truro, apart from a short section across Bodmin Moor, near the village of Temple.
In late 2007 a new dual carriageway now runs around Goss Moor with the existing road converted to a cycle lane[9] and now avoids the former bottleneck of the iron bridge that caused problems for HGV lorries which often became stuck under the bridge. See below for more details.
Two other improvements, Temple to Higher Carblake and Carland Cross to Chiverton Cross, were planned and would have created a continuous dual carriageway from Exeter to Camborne but these plans were shelved in 2006 as they were not considered a regional priority.[10]
In Cornwall the A30 previously crossed Goss Moor along a single carriageway section of the road between Victoria and Indian Queens. This was a major bottleneck in the county's transport system until 2007. An iron railway bridge is also situated in the middle of this section in which the Par - Newquay branch line crosses. This was built a long time before the road was dualled at both ends, and so can only fit a single carriage way beneath it. Due to its height (14 ft 3 in), many lorries in previous years had crashed into it, blocking the whole road completely.
There were plans to restore the rest of the St Austell - Indian Queens freight line (currently only going as far up as St Dennis), and direct rail traffic that way, but this plan was dropped. The road had been subject to a long-running campaign for expansion. As Goss Moor is a National Nature Reserve[11] it is one of the most highly protected wildlife sites in the UK, and plans for expansion were strongly opposed.[12] In late 2004 a decision was finally reached, and a new dual carriageway now runs around the moor with the existing road converted to a cycle lane.[9] The first 4-mile (6.4 km) section of the new dual carriageway between Highgate Hill and the new Victoria Interchange opened at midnight on 9/10 May 2007. The former bottleneck of the iron bridge having now been eliminated means that problems with HGV lorries being stuck under the bridge should be a thing of the past. The remaining 3-mile (4.8 km) stretch of new dual carriageway between Victoria Interchange and Innis Downs roundabout opened on 25 June 2007.
The new dual carriageway means that average travel times along this section of the route have reduced significantly. Several petrol stations along the old route have now closed down, and the former route across Goss Moor is now silent once more. The remains of a Stone Age settlement were discovered along the new route during construction.[13]
John Betjeman immortalised the A30 in his poem "Meditation on the A30".
Arthur Boyt, star of BBC documentary The Man Who Eats Badgers, described the A30 near Bodmin Moor as a good road for finding roadkill "[1]"
Lara Croft mentions the road in Tomb Raider: Legend. As in "take the M5 to the A30" Cornwall?[14]
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