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Welcome to the Lancashire Motorways And Roads Site!
Writing, Photographing, and
Ranting about Lancashire's roads since Jan 19th, 2003.
The Internet's #1 Source for Red Rose Roads!
January 29th, 2008
Well, well,
well, what an exciting time I have had since the last update. Amidst
personality clashes, family related melodramas, and university being an
absolute time-consuming experience, I am pleased to announce that I
completely missed my website's all important fifth birthday
on January 19th. I never thought I'd see LMARS last more than a few
months when I first created it on Geocities. The next five years may
just see this place evolve beyond the current clunky HTML based format
and move towards a more sleek design but that all depends on me being
bothered to actually code that.
In other
news, the M65 extension has now been open for 10 years as of December
15th, 2007, and thanks to everything listed above I missed that as
well. Don't worry, an extensive feature regarding the road's history is
in the pipeline, but for now you'll have to settle for a small re-write
of the existing M65 page. More will follow soon!
Updated Content:
M65 photo gallery edited, with some textual edits.
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Hello and welcome to
LMARS!
If you're visiting this site for the first
time, allow me to say hello! This site is not intended as a campaign or
demands site, rather, a study and commentary about the roadways in my
county. After all, I hail from the county that introduced the concept
of the Great British Motorway, the first rural purpose built inter-city
roadway before the motorways and of course, some of the UK's most
varied landscapes. Not to mention I live in the town with "four
thousand holes".
So,
what's Lancashire like?
Lancashire is a very diverse county in
terms of urban and rural settings - the south Lancashire plain is quite
densely populated, yet to the north of Preston the county suddenly
turns into rural and occasionally scenic moorland, although many parts
emulate the bleaker elements of the peak district (particularly the
Woodhead Pass area). To the west lies the Irish Sea, and on the
coast sits the great tourist trap that is Blackpool, with its famous
illuminations. While non-Lancastrians tend to like Blackpool, the
natives are quite happy to say it's a cesspit - especially since
Bolton-born Peter Kay did his sketch about "Cesspool".
And
what's in your website, and why?
LMARS features content primarily on
Lancashire, but most focus is on Blackburn as it's where I live.
However, in 2004 I got my provisional driver's license and now own a
scooter, a Piaggio Typhoon for those who care, and can now get about
somewhat more - which makes finding new content for the website much
easier! The aim is to cover what was considered "pre-1974" Lancashire
as well as modern day Lancashire - so the A666 through Bolton could be
included, as could the A59 around Gisburn.
As you'd expect from the title, this is a
roads website, not a tourist board website - so while (eventually) you
may find photos of the wonderful Trough of Bowland road, you won't find
information on the tourist facilities there, I'm afraid!
Also, since I go to France a lot, there is
a sub-site in progress which focuses on the roads of France (a
brilliant country to drive in, I suggest you visit it someday!) which will be online eventually.
LMARS was set up in January 2003,
after I decided I finally wanted a website. Originally on Geocities, it
eventually progressed onto bigger platforms - originally on my friend's
server at Digibase, but in January 2004 I was bought the domain name
and the accompanying webspace which is where LMARS is today. In June
2004, David Higgerson of the Lancashire Evening Telegraph emailed me
regarding the site, and on June 18, 2004, it was published in a very
large article in the LET. A short while after that, the
Daily Telegraph caught wind of SABRE and LMARS was featured yet again -
see here for details!
I've been interested in roads since I
could first talk/draw/read. I don't know where the interest came from,
best idea I have is that my late grandfather was a HGV driver and he
must've discussed that with me as a very young child. Who knows, but
whatever, it's here to stay and this website hopes to share some of
that with you, the reader.
Bryn Buck,
June 2006.
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