The final link in Dublin's C-Ring motorway network, the South Eastern Motorway, was approved by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, yesterday. To be built at a cost of £133 million, the 11 km motorway will connect the Southern Cross Motorway, at present under construction at Ballinteer, to the M11 Motorway at Chantilly on the Bray-Shankill bypass.
The scheme includes some 4 km of ancillary roads connecting it with Dublin's southern suburbs, which daily experience severe traffic difficulties. Mr Dempsey said the benefits of a western bypass for Dublin would be immense "as the motorway will provide for the huge volumes of traffic which are using local roads at present".
The Minister of State for the Taoiseach, Mr Seamus Brennan, through whose constituency the route travels, said his constituents were "enduring the increasing traffic nightmares and bottlenecks which feature on the radio traffic reports and this news will give them great hope for their future journeys".
The motorway is expected to be completed by June 2003, according to Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, although it does acknowledge that the construction could be held up by a High Court challenge similar to that which delayed the start of the Southern Cross Route.
The Ballyogan council housing estate, Leopardstown racecourse, Leopardstown Park Hospital, the British ambassador's residence at Sandyford and the former lands of the Legionaries of Christ, which are to be developed into a business park, are all in or near the path of the proposed motorway.
While the owners of the business park will welcome the approval, and the British ambassador is moving house, the Irish Horse Authority and Leopards town racecourse have expressed concern about the route bisecting their five-furlong gallop. Eamon Gilmore TD (DL) has also called for the road to be moved away from the Ballyogan housing estate, part of which is in part only 30 metres from the motorway.
The South Eastern Motorway leaves the M11 motorway north of the Wilford Junction and continues north-west over a bridge at Bride's Glen to Laughanstown junction, where a link road will be made to the existing Wyattville junction on the Loughlinstown dual carriageway.
From Laughanstown junction it will pass just south of Carrick mines tennis club, then along the northern boundary of the local authority housing at Ballyogan. From there it is planned through Leopardstown racecourse, Leopardstown Park Hospital and the British ambassador's residence.
The route crosses Leopardstown Road at the junction with Murphystown Road and continues to Sandyford junction east of Moreen estate. There it heads west, on the south of the Central Bank, turning south-west to a junction with Ballinteer located between Lamb Doyles and Ballinteer.
Continuing south-west, it crosses Blackglen Road before turning north-west and runs parallel to Harolds Grange Road to its junction with the recommended route for the Southern Cross Motorway.
