A24 road (Northern Ireland)

The A24 is a major road in Northern Ireland; running from Belfast, through Carryduff and Ballynahinch to Clough, near Newcastle where it meets the A2.

The section of the A24 from Forestside Shopping Centre to Carryduff roundabout was named by European Road Assessment Programme ( [http://www.eurorap.org EuroRAP] ) as one of the six most dangerous sections of road in Northern Ireland in 2005. This part of the road is a four lane undivided carriageway.

There has been a long running campaign for a by-pass of the A24 around Ballynahinch. Geological surveys were conducted over twenty years ago to determine the route of the bypass but money has never been allocated by the Department of the Environment. In the 1990s various traffic control measures were introduced including the present one way system, however all have failed to cope with the sheer volume of traffic which passes through the town daily. The establishment of the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1998 lead to reports that a bypass may commence sooner than the 6 to 15 year projection of the DoE, supposing that a coalition of County Down MLAs could push the executive to approve the project faster than Northern Ireland Office ministers would. However the stop-start status of devolution has made such a move impossible and the NIO's Parliamentary Under Secretary of State has made infrastructure decisions.