THIS is what the road which links Blackburn’s £12 million “bridge to nowhere” to somewhere will look like.

The line of the long-delayed Freckleton Street Link Road can now be seen as motorists struggle along Blackburn’s part-completed orbital route.

The £7 million highway linking the Wainwright Bridge, Bolton Road and Preston Old Road through Freckleton Street to Montague Street will finally be completed in February — a full decade after it was started in 2006.

The heavy-duty construction equipment is now on site as the main route for the carriageway has been driven through to the end of dual-carriageway span over the River Blakewater.

Meanwhile, archaeologists are painstakingly working on the St Peter Street graveyard to identify, disinter and move the bodies buried there to a new location to allow the final stages of the road to be completed early in the new year.

The scheme has been dogged with problems including whether English Heritage objected to the demolition of the 18th-century Old Police House in King Street and the Local Government Secretary called the plan in for review.

There were further problems while a deal worth up to £800,000 to buy Blackburn’s Spiritualist Church and provide a replacement was negotiated.

When it was announced in September 2012 that work would start, the target date for completion was the end of last year.

Further problems over the number of graves in St Peter Street delayed the work, with claims it could be thousands rather than hundreds leading to specialist archaeology teams being called in.

Blackburn with Darwen Council regeneration boss Phil Riley said: “Finally we can see where the Freckleton Street Link Road will go when it is completed in February.

“It has been a long process with a lot of problems but we are nearly there.

“This will help complete the orbital route and make an improvement to traffic flows into, out of and around Blackburn town centre.

“It will give us the opportunity to review the town-centre traffic-movement strategy and we are consulting on how best to do that.

“So far the archaeologists’ best estimate is that there will 200 to 300 bodies that will need to be disinterred and moved respectfully and sensitively.”

Already the first proposed change to the traffic system with the completion of the link road near — reversing vehicle flow on King Street back to into town only after four years — has caused controversy.

Chamber of Trade president Tony Duckworth said the highway should never have been changed from an inward traffic artery.

He said: “At last we have progress. This has taken far too long.

“It will not complete the orbital route while they are still messing around on Furthergate.

“They do have the chance to review traffic in the town centre but they need to get it right this time.”

The link road will help the completion of the rest of the Knowledge Zone around the Blackburn College campus.