A5 ruling 'puts building of all new roads in Northern Ireland at risk' says transport expert Wesley Johnston

Wesley Johnston, a researcher and author of a book on Belfast's motorway system, said there is at least a year of work ahead to even begin to get the A5 scheme back on track after the High Court in Belfast issued a judgment against it.

He said the whole episode is really "a very big, expensive learning exercise" for Stormont.

He was speaking after Monday's seismic ruling that the government was wrong to press ahead with building the new A5 dual carriageway next to the existing A5, connecting south Tyrone with north Londonderry.

The key reason for this was the Climate Change Act, introduced by then-farming minister Edwin Poots back in 2022, which set legally binding targets for curbing greenhouse gas emissions (such as those from cars).

The court found that the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) had not made a convincing case for how the A5 project sits with the climate act's targets.

"It's new ground really, because the Climate Change Act was a new thing that hadn't been tested in court before now," said Dr Johnston.

"It basically puts a much higher bar on DfI for assessing the impact of new schemes on the legally-binding carbon budget we now have.

"It doesn't kill the scheme, but it does put it in serious jeopardy, because DfI would have to clearly demonstrate the scheme doesn't prevent the achievement of targets across the whole transport sector.

"That's the only way they can protect the scheme going forward.

"There's a lot of work – more than a year's worth of work there working all of this out. I think it's a big setback, but it's also a setback of Stormont's own making.

"This [the A5] is their scheme, but they also passed the legislation which has torpedoed it, basically."

He added: "Any scheme that is close to going ahead I think could potentially be affected.

"Because any road scheme – like the Enniskillen Bypass, the Cookstown Bypass, the Ballynahinch Bypass – could be challenged on exactly the same grounds."

Could it affect things like the York Street Interchange too in Belfast (a massive planned upgrade to ease traffic congestion)?

"It could like any scheme," replied Dr Johnston. "Yes, it could."

So does it put all future road-building schemes in jeopardy?

"I think it does yes, I think it'd be fair to say that."

As to the A5, would it be possible for the government to change tack and simply widen the existing road?

"The existing road has so much side access on it – there's hundreds of houses along it, farm gates, everything, and you just can't upgrade that to the type of standard they're looking for," he said.

"You'd have to build parallel access roads down each side, and that's really destructive.

"It's a lot less destructive to just go cross-country and leave the current road as it is for the people who live along it.

"Even the curves are too tight, and the sightlines. For example the new road is designed to have a speed of 70mph so you'd be needing to cut out hills, fill in valleys, tighten out curves.

"The old road was built in the early 1800s – it wasn't built to those standards."