Improving access through Ravenscraig

These proposals provide new road and active travel routes, and make improvements to whats already there to support the development and regeneration of Ravenscraig.

What's happening now?

We have appointed a contractor to demolish buildings and clear the sites we need for the road link.

Demolition work will start in August and work to prepare the ground within the Ravenscraig site will follow this.

What's been happening?

We have completed the bridge under the West Coast Main Line and prepared for the development of the new road and foot/cycle paths.

Evans Halshaw have moved to a new location at 528-540 Windmillhill Street and tenants at other buildings have been relocated.

What we have permission to do

We received detailed planning permission in September 2021 to let us do the phases of work.

Create a new road

The proposed new dual carriageway will join the existing road at the Ravenscraig Regional Sports Facility and connect with Motherwell.

The new road will include a new roundabout to provide access to future development areas in Ravenscraig. The speed limit on the dual carriageway within Ravenscraig will be 40 miles per hour, dropping to 30 miles per hour at the railway line and on into Motherwell.

As the new road approaches Windmillhill Street, it will cross Orbiston Street and there will be access to this from the dual carriageway from left in/left out junctions.

Provide a bridge across the railway line

We have built is the railway bridge, this will let us build a dual carriageway road under the railway line.

Building an under bridge, means the structure is smaller and has less impact on the area and creates a better route for walking, cycling and wheeling.

We worked closely with Network Rail to develop the proposals for the bridge.

To let us build the bridge, we entered an agreement with Network Rail and their contractor, Story Contracting. 

Story Contracting finished the installation of the new bridge during April 2024 and completed works to fully reinstate the railway over the summer.

You can find out information on:

• the installation of the bridge, which was one of the largest bridge lifts in Europe. 
• Central Scotland MSP, Graham Simpsons visit to the site of a new bridge.

Create a new roundabout at Windmillhill Street

The new roundabout is much bigger than the existing roundabout. This is because of the level of traffic expected in the future and to enable safe movements of all vehicles including heavy goods vehicles.

The speed limit on this road is proposed to remain at 30 miles per hour.

Walking, cycling and wheeling

There will be shared use footways/cycleways along the new and improved sections of road and these will connect to both the existing and new paths that are part of the Ravenscraig Masterplan to enable active travel throughout the area.

Completing the dualling of Airbles Road

In June 2022 we received a Certificate of Lawfulness, this means an application for Planning Permission wasn't needed for this work.

All the plans for the proposal can be found on our online planning system using reference 22/00625/CLP.

Our proposals for improvements to the western end of Airbles Road include:

• Completing the dualling of Airbles Road between Airbles Farm Road and Hamilton Road to create a dual carriageway. This includes a central reserve and improving the capacity and safety of the left turn from Airbles Road to Hamilton Road with an increase in the radius of the corner.

• Providing controlled toucan crossing for pedestrian and cyclists crossings at the junction with Hamilton Road.
• Fully signalising the junction with Airbles Farm Road and providing a new toucan crossing.

• Improving footways/cycleways including providing a new shared footway/cycleway on the north side of Airbles Road from Tinkers Lane to Hamilton Road.

The closeness of junctions and available land means that for road safety we propose to no longer allow vehicles to turn right out of Greenaces on to Airbles Road or for vehicles to turn right from Airbles Road on to Greenacres. Road users who want to head east on Airbles Road will instead join Airbles Road from Airbles Farm Road.

Similarly, we propose to no longer allow vehicles to turn left or right out of Tinkers Lane onto Airbles Road or for vehicles to turn right from Airbles Road onto Tinkers Lane. Road users who want to join Hamilton Road to head towards Hamilton or the motorway will instead join Hamilton Road at the north end of Tinkers Lane.

The works to mitigate the impacts of the proposed works include noise acoustic barriers on the north side of Airbles Road.

Find out more

There is more information on the project and maps for you to see in our Story Map.

We recommend you sign up to our email alerts as the best way to keep up-to-date on the RAI South project.

You might also be interested in finding out about RAI North.