Reopening the old Drayton slip road onto the A34 has sometimes been talked about as a way of reducing traffic coming into Abingdon on the Drayton Road – where traffic queues are a long running issue.
The slip road was being used by travelers for a spell at the start of the year. Since then interlocking concrete blocks have been put across the entrance and adjoining fences.
Two week ago the blocks were removed and construction traffic entered the slip way. The slipway is not being opened up, as I at first hoped, or being blocked up for good. At the A34 end the slipway has been used as an unofficial layby on the A34, and the work is to make it an official layby. The existing gates will be replaced with heavy duty gates and the interlocking concrete blocks put back.
According to a Drayton parish council minutes that I found online this was never actually a ‘slip road’ as such, and was not built to the appropriate standard, but an access point for construction vehicles while the A34 was being built. I don’t personally know either way, but have also seen the same story from ex-Highways workers.
As far as I remember, it was actually where the “new” A34 ended for a few years. It joined up with the original road which went through Steventon, across Rowstock then up Gore Hill. Those were the days!
The next phase was built a few years later.
That’s correct, the “missing” section between Gore Hill and Drayton meant driving past the Harwell laboratory site and down through Steventon before heading up the Drayton “slip road” and once again joining existing dual carriageway towards Abingdon and Oxford. I remember doing this regularly in the last 70’s. I’m sure there was a “down” slip road on the other side too.
Also remember the slog over Gore Hill before it was widened to dual carriageway.
A long time ago people put forward the suggestion that the Highways Authority open up the sliproad to take the pressure off the Drayton Road where long queues can form in peak times. The Highways Authority said that they will not open it up to traffic as they do not want too many entry points onto the A34.
That was also their argument against a full interchange at Lodge Hill. Hopefully they’ve changed their minds.
There isn’t a great deal of room under the bridge for filter lanes for traffic that wanted to use a potential slip road. Without filter lanes there would be more queuing traffic and difficulties getting to the recycling centre.
I remember it well, as I used to cycle to a mate who lived along just beyond on Steventon Road, coming via Drayton you had to cross what then was the A34 that came down off that ‘slip’ road as it continued onto the village of Steventon!
It seems that Highways Authority are spending a LOT of money to upgrade an old construction point into a Lay By. Call me an old synic, but woldnt that location be a good turn off for construcion traffic, if Thames Water got their way and built a jolly great reservior there.
Discuss.