The Foyle Valley stretching from the walled city of Londonderry, or Derry, in the north to the pleasant market town of Omagh in Co Tyrone is one of most attractive areas in Northern Ireland. With the foothills of the distant Sperrins to the east and the picturesque mountains and hills of Donegal to the west, the Foyle Valley is an area of unspoilt beauty punctuated with family farms and long established businesses on the land and in the smaller towns and villages in the valley.
The main transport corridor from Derry to Omagh is the A5 road and forms the Northern Ireland section of the main Derry to Dublin road. From Omagh the road extends southwards to the main junction at Ballygawley with the A4. The A4 is the main trunk road linking Enniskillen and the south-western border counties with Belfast via the M1 motorway. From Ballygawley the A5 continues south to the Irish border south of Aughnacloy. From the border and now within a different jurisdiction, it becomes the N2 which continues southwards to Dublin.
The closure of all rail connections in the western border counties and to Dublin and Belfast in 1957 and 1965 left the road system as the only transport option. Promises to build a motorway following the 1965 railway closure came to nothing and the outbreak of ‘the troubles’ a short time later placed pressures and strain on public spending and investment options. A motorway link from Omagh to Dungannon to meet the M1 completed as far as Dungannon in 1967 was never to materialise although the A5 trunk road south of Omagh was widened during the 1970's and 1980’s, as was the A4 from Ballygawley to the M1 near Dungannon.
The A5 south of Omagh is comparable with many other main trunk roads in the UK, often with much heavier traffic flows, and is capable of complementing the ongoing development of the aforementioned A4 road linking Enniskillen and Belfast without anything much more substantial than minor works and localised junction improvements etc. The A5 north of Omagh takes on more the characteristic of a commuter route linking the town and other population settlements such as Newtownstewart and Strabane with Derry and, unlike the road south of Omagh, is in need of on line improvement in the form of 2 +1 lane provision.
Omagh itself as well as Newtownstewart and Strabane have during the past two decades benefited from the building of through-passes or bypasses.
Derry, or Londonderry, is a major centre for business, industry, retail and higher education and is the second city in Northern Ireland if one excludes those towns recently granted city status. On the island of Ireland, the city has very close economic and working ties with the neighbouring town of Letterkenny situated in the Republic of Ireland and is the fourth largest centre of population after Dublin, Belfast and Cork.
As well as the main A5 road, Derry is also served by the main A6 to Belfast via the Glenshane Pass and a rail link to Belfast via Coleraine. The city also has a ratepayer-subsidised airport and, as well as holiday flights, has a daily air service to and from Dublin.
It is the policy of the Northern Ireland Assembly to develop transport links to and from Derry. Until recently, this development focused on retention and improvement to the rail link and substantial work to dual the A6 from the city to Dungiven and the A2 from the city to Maydown and City of Derry Airport but in the wake of the St Andrews agreement that led to the restoration of a power sharing executive at Stormont near Belfast, a ‘new kid appeared in town.’
The A5 from the city does not have the same traffic density as the A6 to Belfast and the NI
Department of Regional Development in March 2006 stated in an answer to a question in the House of Lords from Lord Laird that there were no plans to provide a dual carriageway on the A5 route. Almost from nowhere, and in complete contradiction to that response to Lord Laird, almost one billion pounds materialised during 2007 from both the Belfast and Dublin administrations for the building of a new build dual carriageway from Newbuildings outside Londonderry to Aughnacloy and paralleling the existing A5 road.
The project, now called the A5 Western Transport Corridor Project, was conceived just as the Northern Ireland Assembly was born. This begs the question ‘what behind the doors hush hush talks during late 2006 and into 2007 led to this project?’ The circumstance of any ‘behind the doors’ talks also questions the role of parliamentary debate and discussion about the project in Belfast and Dublin. There has been no debate in either city by politicians despite evidence that the A5 project has huge environmental implications that conflict with the European Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive SEA 2001/42/EC and UK, including Northern Ireland, emission targets as contained within the Climate Change Act 2008.
There has been no comparative study of all transport options on the Londonderry to Dublin corridor including air, the existing rail line via Belfast and feasibility of restoring all or part of the closed direct rail line that connected Derry to Dublin via Omagh and Portadown and which followed a route similar to that of the proposed A5 dual carriageway.
Northern Ireland and its capital city Belfast is the most car dependent region in Europe and the ease in which such a massive road project can simply take form without debate, study or consideration of alternatives speaks volumes about the paucity of informed and critical debate within the transport community, amongst the various political parties and, more worryingly, the Department of Regional Development who preside over a shambolic transport policy - a policy that, unless stopped, will offer as a sacrificial lamb the peacefulness and tranquillity of the Foyle Valley and, in the process, destroy dozens of family-owned farms with prime farm land and countless small businesses in the path of a monster road nobody wants.