page_title: Newbury, Berkshire
section_title: Newbury bypass
hierarchical_section_title: Newbury, Berkshire / Transport / Road / Newbury bypass
caption_attribution_description: English: Cheap Street in Newbury, UK
context_page_description: Newbury is a historic market town in the county of Berkshire, England, which is home to the administrative headquarters of West Berkshire Council.
  The town centre around its large market square retains a rare medieval Cloth Hall, an adjoining half timbered granary, and the 15th-century St Nicolas Church, along with 17th- and 18th-century listed buildings. As well as being home to Newbury Racecourse, it is the headquarters of Vodafone UK and software company Micro Focus International.
  In the valley of the River Kennet, 26 miles south of Oxford, 25 miles north of Winchester, 27 miles south east of Swindon and 20 miles west of Reading. Newbury lies on the edge of the Berkshire Downs; part of the North Wessex Downs Area of outstanding natural beauty, 3 miles north of the Hampshire-Berkshire county boundary. In the suburban village of Donnington lies the part-ruined Donnington Castle and the surrounding hills are home to some of the country's most famous racehorse training grounds. To the south is a narrower range of hills including Walbury Hill and a few private landscape gardens and mansions such as Highclere Castle.
context_section_description: [File:[Main Street In Newbury, view from the Bridge.jpg |thumb|right|upright|Main Street In Newbury, view from the Bridge]]
  The town's location at the intersection of the routes from London to Bristol and from Southampton to Birmingham made it, for many years, a transport bottleneck. In 1963 a Dual Carriageway was built east of the town centre to ease congestion and the opening of the M4 in 1971 moved the intersection of these major trunk routes three miles north of the town, to Chieveley. The ring road around the town still suffered serious congestion and the Newbury bypass was proposed in 1981. The plans were approved in 1990. However they were extremely controversial and this led to a major environmentalist campaign opposing the road development (dubbed the Third Battle of Newbury by parts of the national media). In spite of this, the road was built and finally opened in 1998. Within two months the road surface began to break up and the entire length of the bypass was eventually resurfaced over two weekends using an improved low-noise water-absorbent surface.
  In August 2004, the improved A34-M4 junction 13 was re-opened which allowed north–south traffic on the A34 to completely bypass the earlier roundabout at the M4. This junction continued to be improved, with new road markings and traffic signals completed in 2008.
caption: File:Cheap Street
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