‘Another 11 years’ until York Street interchange built, Stormont committee hears

It will be another 11 years before work begins on the York Street motorway interchange in Belfast, a Stormont committee has heard.

The project was first commissioned in 2007 to address a major bottleneck in Belfast where some of the busiest roads in Northern Ireland meet.

It is set to replace the existing signalised junctions at York Street with direct links between Westlink, the M2 and M3.

It is also to separate traffic via underpasses below the existing road and rail bridges and underneath a new bridge at York Street.

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However, the project has been delayed by a number of objections, legal action and a public inquiry in 2015.

In the same year, the project was estimated to cost between £120m – £165 million.

In 2020, then-infrastructure minister Nichola Mallon announced a “short, sharp” external review of the project to help future-proof the scheme.

The project was included in the 2020 New Decade New Approach deal, and securing funding for it was also part of the DUP’s confidence and supply agreement with former prime minister Theresa May in 2017.

It recently emerged that some £23.7 million had been spent on the project by the end of March 2023.

An Assembly question response by Infrastructure Minister John O’Dowd also revealed that a further £1 million has been allocated for the 2023/24 financial year.

However, the Stormont scrutiny committee for the Department for Infrastructure heard on Wednesday that it is not likely to be built for another 11 years.

Committee chair Deborah Erskine said that information came in a letter from Mr O’Dowd to the committee.

“The York Street interchange, as we know, has been an issue for many years, and the last paragraph seems to indicate that it is stalled and would be another 11 years before completion once it is restarted, which is highly disappointing and very frustrating, to be blunt about it,” she told the committee.

“With traffic into Belfast, this is a huge issue. It has been on many different programmes for governments and priorities.

“From a party political point of view in terms of my own party, confidence and supply money was also sought out in relation to York Street Interchange, so from my point of view it is very frustrating.”

She said she intends to write to the minister to ask what the money has been spent on so far.

“I would like to see where the funding has went so far in relation to the development, and get a proper break down in relation to the costs,” she said.

“Eleven years is crazy.”