A SERIES of road schemes carried out over more than a decade transformed modern Poole.

The building of the Holes Bay Relief Road and the subsequent work to improve it, gave the town a spectacular new gateway as far as drivers were concerned.

The original, £9million scheme to build a relief road was a major engineering project, which entailed reclaiming land from the harbour to connect Sterte Road in the town centre with the Upton bypass.

It was a dual carriageway built entirely on in-filled land – a feat that would probably be impossible today because of planning protection since afforded to the harbour.

Among those not so happy at the development were residents of Sterte Esplanade, who would find themselves no longer living in waterfront homes. They appealed for a lagoon to be built between them and the road, but highways authority Dorset County Council rejected the idea and developer Wimpey filled in the land.

Work on building on the road on the in-filled land began in 1985.

The next part of the scheme involved building a link road along the route of the old railway line to Broadstone.

Bob Williams represented Creekmoor on Dorset County Council in those days and would later be Poole council’s lead member for planning and regeneration.

He said the road brought some big improvements.

“The downside was a lot of the old railway track was built on. Some people hark back and say, why couldn’t we recreate the old railway?

“To be fair, it was a period when building more roads was quite fashionable. Poole town particularly was expanding quite excitingly.

There was an opportunity.”

He said this was one road-building scheme where the benefits did last.

“It took an awful lot of traffic away from Oakdale, for instance. The traffic used to go through Fleetsbridge and Oakdale into Poole and it was gridlocked at the time. I think it served its purpose,” he added.

No sooner was the Broadstone link opened in March 1989 than improvements were being discussed.

In 1990, a £2.6m package was agreed to make the road a dual carriageway for its entire length.

The route contained a bottleneck at the point where traffic merged into one lane. County councillors had reported drivers avoiding the road because of the congestion and using Wimborne Road as their route to the town centre instead.

As well as widening the Holes Bay road, the improvements involved a new roundabout system at the Hunger Hill and Sterte Road junction.

However, the scheme would involve demolishing a row of cottages. They had been branded an ‘eyesore’ and only one of them was occupied, but the residents were refusing to sell. In the end, they were bought with a compulsory purchase order after nearly 18 months of negotiations and flattened in just six hours.

As for the new Hunger Hill roundabout arrangements, there were widespread concerns that they would be confusing, But as it opened in October 20 years ago, the designers insisted it would solve huge tailbacks in the town centre.

Bob Williams believes the development was worthwhile – and points out that it came with the creation of several acres of parkland and public open space to mitigate the road building.

“I think it’s created, dare I say, a really good vista,” he added.

“If you come into Poole from the west and use the Holes Bay Road, it’s a wonderful way of coming in, particularly now the new bridge is there. It’s a good entrance to our town.”