The Triangle
First forgive me if the descriptions below are too detailed for you, not everybody finds it easy to understand this sort of thing and I do want to make this available to as many people as possible. Sorry
The picture below is an aerial view of the area around the Triangle. The big grey blob top left is the roof of the knitwear factory, the car park in the middle at the top is the one for the mill right to the traffic lights. Long Row School is the group of building just above the road bottom right which is of course Long Row. Christ Church is bottom center with the football pitch just to it's left and Pimms is the little building almost in the center of the picture above the green rectangle, next to the Triangle.
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On the first picture I have highlighted the existing road layout in yellow. Let's go up the current A6 through the area, the A6 is on the bottom right of the image. |
- First on the right is Long Row and just next to it is Long Row School
- Opposite the school is Christ Church and the existing entrance to Pimms etc.
- Next on the left is the Triangle it's self, with the parking area behind.
- Now we come to the traffic lights with the turning to Hulland Ward, etc to our left. Straight on is the A6 north towards Cromford, Matlock, etc.
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Now let's look at the layout of the area as it might be if the relief road is ever built. We will follow the same route. |
- First on the right is Long Row and just next to it is Long Row School
- Opposite the school is Christ Church and between it and Pimms the new road.
- Next on the left is the truncated Triangle, the large tree is unaffected, the smaller tree has I am afraid been removed. The parking area has shrunk but still exists.
- Now we come to the traffic lights with the turning to Hulland Ward, etc to our left. Straight on is the A6 north towards Cromford, Matlock, etc.
Update Jan 2010
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The more I here talk of a new junction at the triangle and of Pimms being demolished the more I fear this is what is being planned at the north end. A trafic light junction with two lanes for the A6 in both direstions and extra lanes for the right turns into Belper and towards Ashbourne. This would be an over-kill and tend to produce the race from the lights that we have all seen elsewhere when two lanes are forced into one a hundred yards after the junction. |
The drive down the new Relief Road
Starting outside the fire station and running south down the proposed route of the A6 through Belper, all the way to Babington at the south end.
The fire station on the left is followed by the traffic lights on the junction with the turning to Ashbourne. Once over the traffic lights the road swings to the right past the old A6 which is now only an exit for the traffic from the town.
The road is now passing between the church and Pimms, the clearance is 26 yards, enough room for three lanes two pavements and a bit more so it's not a problem. That is unless you want to make the junction very big, with very easy curves and therefore very easy to drive through with big lorries. A pedestrian crossing here allows everybody who walks to the Mountplesant area to do so without a detour. The road itself is wider than normal but with only two lanes and a central reservation to protect pedestrians at the crossing. The extra width at the two corners allow the few big vehicles that must come through to turn more easily.
At the end of the church the road turns left, south, across the end of the football pitch. Space will exist between the new road and the old rough road at the back of the church, this can become garden and/or car parking.
I will now skip some of the detail on purpose but we go down the new road past the sports grounds, new buildings and car parking on the right, to the closed off end of Derwent Street. A set of traffic lights control a simple junction with the entrance to the new car park, possibly with an extra third lane to allow those waiting to turn to stay out of the way of the traffic flow.
Just past the end of Derwent Street is the new Meadow Walk linking the bottom of Kings Street to Meadow past the front of the new store. I see this as being a nice wide footpath to connect all of this area to the existing town centre. It will cross the new road with a wide pedestrian crossing so we can all cross with ease.
Following the road past the store we go between the back of the church hall and Focus, who have a bit of the outdoor gardening section and the loading bay moved round the corner to allow us through and we are onto the existing road at the back of the mill shops. So we finally pass McDonals, Morrisons and turn right at the island to head south past Struts School and the Babington Hospital.