The long awaited South Devon link road between Newton Abbot’s Penn Inn roundabout and Torquay’s Kerswell gardens bypassing the notorious bottleneck of Kingskerswell on the A380 is nearing completion. The new road will formally be known as the South Devon Highway and it is expected to be in use by December with landscaping to continue into the NewYear.
The 5.5 km (3.4 miles) link road costing £110m will make life much easier for coach operators visiting Torquay and Paignton.
Alan Payling of Torquay’s Coach Drivers Information Pack told CBW: “The
lengthy delays operators have been experiencing for so long will soon be a thing of the past. The new road will make journey times to and from Torquay and Paignton more certain after December. Not only that, many of the excursion itineraries that operators include in their tours involve travelling out of Torquay and Paignton on the A380. So if an operator is planning a visit to Newton Abbot Market, Dartmoor, Exeter or Sidmouth, to name but a few popular destinations, running a tour to Torquay and Paignton will now be cheaper and more effective as time and money won’t be spent sitting in long tailbacks. Many hundreds of operators from throughout the UK visit Torquay and Paignton. The South Devon Highway will make their lives that bit easier.”
Alan added: “To see how the new junctions at Penn Inn and Kerswell Gardens will work, operators and drivers can visit the website for the South Devon Link Road at southdevonlinkroad.co.uk. There is also a recent site fly through video covering the full length of the new road which shows how close the project is to opening to traffic. Once it is completed, coach parties will be eight minutes away from Torquay harbour when they reach the southern end of the new road – Torquay just got that bit closer.”
