Linking up the Link Road

After many months of arguing that traffic travelling south to the Bexhill/Hastings Link Road (BHLR) would access it from the A21 via Junction Road (a winding road off the A21 to a T junction at The Ridge, they have capitulated (they won’t admit it of course), and are now building a totally new road - The Queensway Gateway.

You could call it The Link Road, Link Road. In order to do this, ESCC are in the process of issuing a Compulsory Purchase Order on the SEAT garage (just south of Junction Road).

Then they will close-off Junction Road and build a new roundabout and road there, which will take traffic behind Sainsbury’s and join the BHLR via yet another new roundabout on Queensway.

Whether you like the Link road or not, we’re going to get it, so this is great news for Battle, for traffic to the Link Road will no longer need (or want) to leave the A21 at John’s Cross (as many of us have been predicting, and ESCC denying) and travel through the town and along The Ridge, then vice versa on the return, as would have been the case hitherto.

You would think that ESCC would announce such good news with a fanfare of trumpets, but No.

The only reference you might find is in a two-line planning application (one line taken up with the address) at the bottom of a list on page 85 of the Observer of 17th October 2014.

John Hill

Glengorse, Battle