By DAVID SUDWORTH

IT’S got to be the most pointless roundabout in Skelmersdale.

Stuck on its own with just fields surrounding it and two unfinished junctions blocked off by heavy boulders, Whalleys traffic island has left many a driver scratching their heads down the years.

So last week, after taking my 16th wrong turning down there this year, I decided to find out once and for all why it was ever built in the first place.

Surprisingly, my investigations found it was actually part of what was meant to be a small self-contained community containing houses, shops, a play area, meeting room, pub and even garage!

But like most big ideas of the 1970s, it never came to fruition.

The details are revealed in a little-known full colour plan published by Skelmersdale Development Corporation back in 1975.

The illustration, which is part of Skelmersdale Library’s brilliant public archives section on the first floor, also shows that the hospital was planned for where the Great Bear factory was eventually built on Stanley Industrial Estate.

So what happened to the Whalleys plan?

It appears the 1975 document was only really an aspirational plan.

The idea was that the roads infrastructure should be built to serve any future development ... if they ever came to fruition.

Nearby Dalton Park is a classic example, with the homes built many years after the service road.

So with that in mind, will the Whalleys roundabout ever serve a useful purpose? English Partnerships, the successors to Skem Development Corporation, is certainly not ruling it out.

A spokesman told me: “The land around the roundabout is owned by us and does have an allocation for housing.

“ But there are greenfield constraints on this, basically meaning that any brownfield sites in the area would be given priority and is subject to the local authority and regional housing board’s priorities.”

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