Drogheda’s port access route almost half a century in the making

An aerial view of the only completed phase of the Port Access Northern Cross Route.

There has been much publicity over the past few years about a major piece of infrastructure that is crucial to the sustainable development of Drogheda, Ireland’s newest city.

The Port Access Northern Cross Route (abbreviated as PANCR and often pronounced ‘Pancer’) will, if it’s ever completed, serve as a ‘ring-road’ skirting the northern fringes of Drogheda, eventually linking Drogheda Port with the M1 motorway.

The first phase, completed in 2024, linked the Rosehall Roundabout on the old N1 Dublin-Belfast road (now called the R132) with a new roundabout on Ballymakenny Road. The second phase will link that Ballymakenny roundabout with the Dublin-Belfast railway line. A third phase carries the road from the railway line as far as a planned new roundabout at Newtown Cross on the Termonfeckin Road, with the final phase linking the Newtown roundabout with the Tom Roe’s Point port facility on Baltray Road.

However, the PANCR has had a long and seemingly tortuous gestation. As of January 2026, only ONE of FOUR planned phases of this critical transport link has been completed.

Drogheda City Status Group (DCSG) carried out some research into the planning history of the Port Access Northern Cross Route. What we revealed is that this road has been “in the planning” for almost a half a century!

If you wanted an indication of just how poorly Drogheda has fared under successive governments, and how long it takes to “get things done” here, the rest of this article is worth reading.

The PANCR was previously known as the ‘Northern Cross Route’, which was how it was labelled in the Local Area Plan for the North Drogheda Environs, published by Louth County Council in 2004 – 22 years ago.

Almost half a century

However, the need for an outer ring road (what might be considered Drogheda’s version of Dublin’s M50) was first identified as long ago as 1978, which is 48 years ago this year.

In the ‘Drogheda Draft Development Plan’ of 1978, details of which were published in the Drogheda Independent newspaper, planning officials outlined their vision of an “integrated road network”, for which they had drawn up a plan. This road network plan envisioned the need for what was then called the ‘Ballymakenny cross route’, linking the Dundalk Road (now the R132) with the Newtown Road. At that time, the M1 did not exist.

In 1981, during a protracted dispute over road access to the then new Drogheda Corporation housing development at Moneymore, Louth County Manager P. Lavin indicated to Councillor Peter Moore that the “Ballymakenny cross route would help open up the area”. The Drogheda Independent of 13th March 1981 paraphrases Mr. Lavin: “He agreed that the proposed route would not be built in the immediate future but suggested that its start might be a little sooner than originally expected.”

Forty-five years later, just one phase of that ‘Ballymakenny Cross Route’ (i.e. PANCR) has been completed.

Drogheda Corporation’s draft development plan of 1987 forecast that Drogheda would “double the size of its present housing and industrial area in the next 20 years”, bringing a population increase of 10,000. Drogheda’s population in 1987 was 24,785, and was expected to grow to 34,352 by 2007.

1987 plan

In a report on the draft development plan for Drogheda published in the Drogheda Independent on 28th August 1987, the then Drogheda Corporation (later Drogheda Borough Council, which was abolished in 2014) outlined plans for the growing town’s infrastructure:

“The Corporation are planning to construct four major new roads in the next 20 years. These cross routes will allow traffic to travel from one side of the town to the other without having to go through it. The Ballymakenny Cross Route will skirt Drogheda on the north side from the Dundalk main road to the Baltray road. The Bryanstown Cross Route on the south side will bring traffic from the Marsh Road to the Rathmullen Farm Bridge Road. The Rathmullen Farm Bridge Road will extend the major traffic route from Donore Road through the industrial estate and provide a direct link to the Platin Road and an anticipated motorway junction. Finally there will be a new internal link road from Shop Street to West Gate, running via Dyer Street, Wellington Quay and the former Murdock’s timber yard.”

So the 1987 development plan envisaged the construction of four major roads – including the Ballymakenny Cross Route – over the 20-year lifetime of the plan. In other words, the Ballymakenny Cross Route should have been completed by 2007. Needless to say, it wasn’t!

In 1992, “radical proposals” aimed at easing Drogheda’s traffic congestion were presented to Drogheda Corporation in a discussion document prepared by a former Borough Engineer, Seamus Airton.

A new bridge over the Boyne

Airton’s report, according to the Drogheda Independent (25th September 1992), said: “The major problem at St. Mary’s Bridge was caused by the large number of heavy commercial vehicles using St. Mary’s Bridge and the North Quay. These were generally carrying loads to and from the port and Premier Periclase. Access to the port would not be improved until the construction of the Ballymakenny Cross Route and/or the Bryanstown Cross Route with the bridge linking the two sections of ring road at Premier Periclase”.

 “This bridge was clearly long-term but it should be possible to get the Ballymakenny Cross Route constructed relatively quickly if the Government could be convinced of the necessity for an access route to the port. EC funds were available for such purposes.”

Clearly, the Government of the early 1990s was not convinced of the necessity of the Ballymakenny Cross Route!

Northside railway station

Fast-forward to 1995, and then Fianna Fáil councillor, the late Jimmy Mulroy, was calling for the Ballymakenny Cross Route AND a new railway station for the north side of Drogheda to be included as part of the planned construction of the M1 motorway.

The Drogheda Independent of 20th January 1995 reported that: “The development plan for Drogheda includes provisions for an access route from the Dublin/Belfast road to the docks. This road – the Ballymakenny Cross Route – should be given priority, according to Ald. Mulroy, who said it should be constructed in tandem with the interchanges on the proposed new motorway. The Ballymakenny road would be the ideal place for a second railway station serving the north side of the town.”

Sadly, that didn’t happen. Instead, Drogheda was “gifted” the toll booths at Donore Road, meaning entry and egress to the town would come at a price. What are the chances that now, in 2026, at least some of the toll money charged on the M1 toll could be invested in the completion of the PANCR?

In September of 2000, independent Drogheda Corporation councillor Tommy Byrne, who ran an auctioneers’ business on North Quay, was frustrated over parking and traffic issues there which were heavily exacerbated by the estimated 1,000 lorries a week passing his premises.

“Pressure must be brought to bear on the Government to finish the Ballymakenny cross route immediately, according to Cllr. Byrne,” reports the Drogheda Independent on 22nd September 2000. “This cross route is crucial to the port and to the town.”

In October of the same year (2000), the Drogheda Independent reported that the ‘preferred route’ for what was now called the Drogheda Northern Cross Port Access Route (formerly known as the Ballymakenny Cross Route), had been selected by Louth County Council, and a draft plan circulated to councillors.

Five years

“The 5.5km (3.5 mile) link road will cost in the region of £15 million and will take up to five years to complete,” the newspaper reported.

If only it had been that simple!

In fact, from the time of the cross route’s first mention in 1978 until then (2000), 22 years had elapsed. Another 24 years would elapse before just ONE section of the PANCR would open!

In that same newspaper report, then Senator Fergus O’Dowd appeared to make a prescient argument for Drogheda along the lines of what Drogheda City Status Group has been campaigning for for years.

Senator O’Dowd said the PANCR was “the most important development in the town’s infrastructure for many years. Drogheda Corporation must be in control of all these new developments – it is not acceptable that Louth and Meath County Councils will effectively be making decisions for the town”.

To be continued . . .

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