 During the construction of this bypass the Talbot public house on the town bridge was demolished, along with a number of shops opposite the Boar's Head public house, and houses on Lower Street/Pepper Street adjacent to St Michael and All Angels Church.This bypass successfully eased the flow of traffic away from the main shopping street, but the confluence of three major roads remains a bottleneck, which will be eased by a proposed eastern bypass.Since the early 1980s Middlewich has seen a significant quantity of new housing development, initially in the Sutton Lane and Hayhurst Avenue areas.