The St. Ives by-pass, first suggested 44 years ago and formally planned for 29 years ago, was finally opened by Lt Col Peter Brassey, Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire.

What people may not realise is that from today no private car will be able to use the road over the old bridge, which will be used in the meantime by pedestrians, public service vehicles, and as an access for goods vehicles. Eventually the county council has every intention of pedestrianising the centre of the town, so the road will become largely redundant. The effect on the town will be quite considerable, for the only traffic that will need to use roads in St. Ives itself will be local - all through traffic will avoid the town completely.

Mr Glyn Evans, assistant county surveyor, said that in future it could a more attractive place, in which to live and shop, because there would be no worries about heavy lorries, or about crossing the road and so on. "When you think that the present bridge was built in 1426, this completely new road will be quite beneficial to St. Ives" he said. "It will provide a new communication from the industrial estate right through to the A604, which is being dualled to provide a link between this part of East Anglia to the ports and the M11 to London. This is going to be a real boost to St. Ives

The whole scheme was designed and supervised by the county surveyor, Mr Brian Oldridge, who originally intended the work to start in the autumn of 1978 and finish in the late summer of 1980, so the road has actually been built in less time than was planned.

Mr Ian Alexander, resident engineer for the contractors, A. Monk and Co. Ltd. from Stamford, said the only real difficulties he had encountered were flooding the site, and obtaining supplies during the strikes in the steel and transport industries. Now all that remains to be done are the finishing touches at the south end where London Road joins the by-pass and on the approach roads. The structure has been put up for an award to the concrete society, but results of the competition will not be published until next summer.

One legacy the construction has left behind is a leisure and water sports round a lake formed in flooded gravel pits., where the district council intends to have a boat club. A seemingly useless roundabout on the part of the road built over the disused railway line will eventually have an access road to the boat club.

"One good thing about this new road is that the old bridge will now be much safer for children crossing over, especially for those cycling from Hemingford" said Mr Evans. Altogether, St. Ives would be more pleasant, with none of the frustrating traffic congestion which has been intolerable and even dangerous for 20 years.