A MUCH desired Callington bypass is unlikely to happen for decades due to pressure on highways budgets and too many other priorities, Callington Town Council was told last week.

Due to subsidence issues signs have been erected on Florence Road, often used as a shortcut from the A388 to the A390 avoiding the town, to deter heavy goods vehicles from using it.

But Callington resident Mike Green told a meeting of the town council it was 'a scandal' that Florence Road had been closed off to lorries as it was far better than the road through the town.

'It's a disgrace that so many large lorries go past the primary school with hundreds of children going to and from it every day,' he said.

Cornwall and town councillor Andrew Long said Florence Road was already subsiding and it was not a C class road anymore. The road that went through the town could take 20 times the amount of vehicles going on it than Florence Road.

He said it would cost £13-million to bring Florence Road up to standard but at the moment there was no funding to make the road suitably strengthened to take large lorries.

'We waited 35 years for a Dobwalls bypass and we are still waiting for a St Mellion bypass which was promised in 1982,' he said.

'We are currently looking at the town plan, which includes a bypass, but I think it will be five to ten years' time before there's even a suggestion of some funding because it all depends on private funding.'

He said he did not expect to see it in his time as a councillor or in the next generation of councillors or even the generation after that.

'The reality is that the roads in Callington are not worse than any other B and C class roads in Cornwall, but the only work that can be done at the moment is reactive, emergency and maintenance only.

'There is no plan to upgrade the road, the blue signs are temporary and there is still an option for a North/South bypass.

'We have to look at what we can do as a community because as far as Cornwall Highways are concerned we do not exist. There are blackspots on the A30 and we cannot get funding to upgrade these, that is a real outrage on a trunk road.'