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Board endorses Middleton Road closing

Cattle farmer Wells Shealy speaks in favor of closing Middleton Road.

FLAT ROCK — The Henderson County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to allow the closing of a segment of Middleton Road, meaning the state would give up maintenance of the road and abandon plans to replace the Middleton Road bridge over Mud Creek.


Property owner Wells Shealy petitioned the N.C. Department of Transportation to abandon the road after engineers announced plans to replace the bridge and said they . The bridge construction over two years would have cut off his access to a pasture, essentially putting him out of business, he said.
Shealy, the owner of Three Arrows Farm and Cattle Co., has promised to maintain the road and all property owners on either side of the dirt road signed the petition requesting its abandonment.
Dan Ravenal, a grandson of the road's namesake, said the land has been in the family for 75 years. Family members want the road to stay as it is, he said, with no bridge or paving. Residents fear that if the DOT spends $2 million to replace the Middleton Road bridge it would then want to widen and pave Middleton Road.
“This young man, Wells Shealy, is a lot younger than I am and he’s pledged to maintain the road,” Ravenal said.
Mark Stierwalt, executive director of the environmental advocacy organization MountainTrue, told commissioners that the road closed to traffic but open to walkers and runners would essentially become a greenway.
“It would for all practical purposes be a low to no cost greenway for Henderson County,” he said. “Folks are going to flock to the road to find a safe haven and to walk along Mud Creek. This is probably the lowest hanging fruit we could ever conceive from a greenway perspective.”
Commissioner Bill Lapsley suggested dozens of people flocking to the road might not be what neighbors have in mind.
“My concern would be if I lived on the road and 10 people a day are walking down the road (now) and there’ll be enormous public interest and all of a sudden there’s 2,000 people walking down the road way, I would want to stop that,” he said.
Even so, commissioners voted to recommend the closure. The NCDOT has the final say but routinely follows a county’s wishes when it comes to rural roads, County Attorney Russ Burrell said. Assuming the NCDOT does agree, the road would be closed from the western-most seven-tenths of a mile would be closed to traffic.