A land acquisition order has been made for a long-planned safety scheme on the A1 in Northern Ireland, moving the proposed upgrade between Hillsborough and Loughbrickland a step closer to delivery.
The Department for Infrastructure made the vesting order on 13 November. It covers certain land needed for improvement works along 25.2 kilometres of the dual carriageway, from Hillsborough Roundabout to Loughbrickland. The order is a legal step towards acquiring land for the scheme, not an announcement that the main construction contract has been awarded.
The department intends to start procurement for a separate site-clearance contract. Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins described the order as the start of the scheme’s final delivery phase, but no start date for the main junction works was announced with the order.
Changes planned for the A1
The project is designed to address safety along a section of the route that links Belfast and Dublin. Up to 40,000 vehicles use parts of the road each day. Kimmins said she was conscious of lives lost and permanently changed on the route, and identified reducing deaths and serious injuries as a priority.
Plans published in 2021 set out four new grade-separated junctions, where flyovers would allow traffic to cross at different levels. They are planned at Listullycurran Road, Gowdystown Road, Skeltons Road and Drumneath Road, and Waringsford Road. The Skeltons Road and Drumneath Road location forms one of the four junctions.
All gaps in the central reservation along the scheme are to be closed, with a continuous safety barrier provided along the route. Removing the gaps would change how drivers make turns across the dual carriageway, making the alternative junction connections an important part of the design.
Those plans also include a northbound slip road from Castlewellan Road at Banbridge and a link from Milebush Road to the existing Hillsborough Road junction at Dromore. Nine selected side roads are proposed for closure. Other side roads and private accesses would operate on a left-in, left-out basis, while some private accesses would also close.
Bus stops on the main carriageway are to be rationalised or relocated to junctions. The plans also include traffic-management technology. These are features of the proposed scheme, not changes that the newly made land order itself has already put in place for drivers.
What the order means
The order vests certain land in the department for the road improvements. It was made under Northern Ireland legislation governing local government and roads. The formal notice and accompanying maps identify the land involved; the existence of the scheme does not mean that every property beside the A1 is included.
Copies of the order and maps can be inspected online and at departmental offices in Portadown, Belfast and Craigavon. People with an interest in land or access along the route would need to check the specific documents to understand whether their property is affected.
The notice provides for an application to the High Court within one month of its publication by anyone wishing to question the order’s validity on specified grounds. Those grounds are that the order is outside the department’s powers or that statutory procedures have not been followed. This is a legal route to challenge the order on those grounds, not a general reopening of the scheme consultation.
Cost and timetable
The scheme’s outline business case was approved on 9 November, with the cost estimated at between £125 million and £150 million. That range is an estimate for the project, not the price of an awarded construction contract or a statement of how much has already been spent.
The project has been through several earlier stages. An environmental assessment and draft statutory orders were published in 2019, followed by a public inquiry in March 2020. The department issued its response in January 2021 and confirmed that the scheme should progress in readiness for funding. Separate road and private-access orders were made in 2021.
A procurement process for the wider scheme began in December 2024. An earlier expectation that a contract would be awarded in 2026 was affected by a legal judgment concerning the separate A5 Western Transport Corridor. The Court of Appeal ruled in the department’s favour in that case in October 2026, providing the legal clarity the department said was needed to move the A1 order forward.
The November vesting order is therefore a distinct land-acquisition milestone after that pause. Procurement for site clearance is the next stated intention, while the timing and arrangements for the main works remain to be confirmed.
