The island’s newest main road has opened.

But for the time being, the Ballasalla bypass can only be used by residents of the Reayrt Mie estate.

And there is a strict 5mph limit.

The new bypass will ultimately re-route the main Douglas to Castletown A5 road from the centre of Ballasalla.

Homebuilder Dandara has constructed it as a condition of its planning consent for the 280-home Reayrt Mie estate.

That planning permission (19/00137/B), approved in June 2019, specified that no house in phase 2 of the development could be occupied until the bypass had been completed.

The bypass runs for a distance of 1.2km from the new roundabout at Glashen Hill to Balthane to the south and includes a bridge over the Steam Railway line.

But the new road will not actually become a bypass until a roundabout is built at Balthane Corner, Responsibility for the construction of that rests with the Department of Infrastructure.

A terrace of houses has had to be demolished and a number of mature trees felled to make way for the new-look junction.

The budget Pink Book gives a total cost of DoI’s roundabout scheme as £1.929m, with £600,000 of that having been spent up to the end of March this year.

Consultants Systra were appointed by the DoI to look at the various options.

Systra considered four options – a four-arm roundabout with 3m wide shared footpath and cycleway, a four-arm junction with traffic lights, two priority junctions on the existing A5 alignment and two linked signal junctions on the bypass alignment.

Systra concluded that the four-arm roundabout offered ‘reasonable junction performance’ but ‘is not considered as safe in terms of vehicle, pedestrian and particularly cycle movements’. It said construction of a fully-compliant roundabout at this location was not possible.

It said the best option in terms of safety was the single signalised junction, which would cost the same to construct.

Nevertheless it was the large roundabout option which was taken forward and secured planning approved last September (22/00567/B).

In its planning statement of case, the DoI said the new layout will improve safety and enhance pedestrian and cycle facilities as well as its removing through traffic from the village. It said the current main road has 12,000 vehicles movements a day and this was forecast to grow with the development of Reayrt Mie.