[2] The road starts in Newton Abbot at the junction with the A381, continuing out through the town, past the connection to the A383 which links to the A38 southbound.

[3] The bypass continues on a northerly route west of the town until it joins the former turnpike road which follows the hillside to Lustleigh, and thereafter the valley of the Wray Brook.

It passes the former Hawkmoor County Sanatorium and the village of Lustleigh before arriving in the town of Moretonhampstead where the B3212 heads towards Postbridge and Princetown in one direction and towards Exeter in the other.

[8] The trust was given the requisite Act of Parliament following a "petition of the Gentlemen, Clergy, and Freeholders of the several Parishes of Teingrafe, Bovey Tracey, Lustley, North Bovey, and Moreton Hampstead" on 19 January 1761, due their road being "incommodious, having a very troublesome ascent and descent, that has scarcely ever been considered a public road".

These were at: The tollhouse at Forches Cross was demolished in 2009, despite the recommendation of the planning officer to refuse permission, as part of a deal by the adjacent garden centre to improve the dangerous junction.

Fourteen of these original 26 milestones still remain,[11] marked with destinations and a distance in miles, furlongs, and poles,[14] and they are listed at Grade II.

[20] The bypass was finally approved in 1986 to largely follow the disused line of the Moretonhampstead and South Devon Railway.

[36] The widening has involved the compulsory purchase of land in use as part of Stover Golf Course,[37][38] and this necessitated the replacement of four holes of the course through expansion of the club.