Mosborough Expressway
Introduction ::
So isn't this just another name for the Mosborough Parkway I hear
you ask, well in part yes, but lets be clear from the outset, the
current route is a shadow of it's original plans.
Mosborough Expressway ::
Although originally developed in the 1950's to link the City Centre
to the M1 at Barlborough (J30), the route evolved into a vital link
for the Mosborough Townships in the 1970's. The route followed
roughly the line of the presently named Mosborough Parkway,
Eckington Way, Rotherham Road, then south towards Renishaw.
The current route is a simple single carriageway route, the proposal set out a very grand, grade separated dual carriageway through green countryside, flanked either side with collector/distributor roads and would have made a very grand entry into Sheffield. Sounds exotic ? well for the time, it was.
So what happened ::
The route of the Mosborough Expressway could probably be traced back
into the 1950's, to a time when Sheffield wasn't as well served by
the motorway network. The M1 as originally commissioned in 1951
missed Sheffield altogether, with the route passing several miles to
the east of the City Centre, heading north from J32 to Doncaster. A
route into Sheffield would have been needed to ensure the City
became connected to the grand vision of latter half of the 20th
Century.
It is clear today, that a great deal of forward planning was undertaken in the 1950's, so that as development in Sheffield spread eastwards into Handsworth, Stradbrook, Woodhouse and Hackenthorpe, a protected corridor was left for a new road to link the City Centre with the then proposed M1, this is particularly evident along the current route of the Sheffield Parkway, where homes were built long before the road :: Here ::. Also :: Here :: that a route was left protected, decades before the current road was finally constructed in the early 1990's. In both cases, homes each side of the protected route, had been built in the 1950's and 1960's, note also the minimal number of other roads crossing the proposed expressway route.
Moving forward in time, the extended route of the M1 past Sheffield was first "published" in 1962, with construction starting in 1965, by this time the housing had been built, the route was still protected, but Sheffield did not need to build a route to J30 at Barlborough, because the extended M1 would swap west, closer to the City Centre, allowing a new shorter link to be built to Catcliffe, (J33). But the expressway route was not dead, it had become very important to the future new township called Mosborough.
Mystery East - West Link Road ::
A little mystery surrounds this route, street maps from the late
1970's indicated a significant proposed dual carriageway route
running east to west, just to the south of Handsworth, linking the
current line of the A57 Mosborough Parkway route near Richmond Road
to a point on the current B6200, which was the old A57 until the mid
1990's. Indeed some evidence from the edges of housing estates and
empty spaces on the current B6200 would point to this being the
case. :: Here :: you can see the proposed line of the East - West
link road as it passes between what is now the Fire Service Training
School (large building complex in the centre of picture) and the
housing built to the north in the 1960's. The proposed route would
have swung slightly north to meet the old A57(T) Retford Road near
to the dark woodland in the centre right of the picture.
However in a slight twist, there has been the suggestion that older plans would have seen the East - West Link Road take a quite different route, starting from the current A57 Aston Bypass, following the current A57 Mosborough Parkway, to the north of Beighton Village, then south along Moss Way, turning west onto a line similar to the current Donetsk Way, then continuing west to meet the A6102 Outer Ring Road. Again, street layouts, protected building lines and provision on the current network would seem to support this route.
:: Warning - No facts support this theory :: One thing that struck me about this older route is how it would have joined both the A61 and old A57 trunk roads together, could there have been plans to extend the route even further west to join the existing A57 to the west and the A61 to the north of the City ? :: End disclaimer ::
The widening of the A6102 Outer Ring Road between Gleadless and Manor Top is one clue to why the older east - west link was never constructed, also, maybe planned boundary changes that never happened played a part in the demise of this interesting route. Only digging deep in the archives will provide me with the answers - more soon
Further Reading ::
:: The Missing Mosborough Townships Roads
:: Mosborough Townships
:: Mosborough Parkway (Stage 1)
:: Mosborough Parkway (Stage 2)
:: Mosborough Parkway (Stage 3)
Wish List ::
:: Original Plans
:: Original Leaflets
:: Dated map extracts
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