My northbound route taken through Salisbury's suburbs? Pity (8)
I believe the answer is:
sympathy
'pity' is the definition.
(I know that pity can be written as sympathy)
'my northbound route taken through salisbury's suburbs?' is the wordplay.
'northbound' shows that the letters should be reversed in order.
'route' becomes 'path' (synonyms).
'taken through' indicates putting letters inside.
'suburbs?' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters) (I've seen 'suburbs of' mean this (suburbs are the edges of a city)).
'salisbury' with its middle removed is 'sy'.
'my' backwards is 'ym'.
'ym'+'path'='ympath'
'ympath' placed into 'sy' is 'SYMPATHY'.
(Other definitions for sympathy that I've seen before include "this could follow tea" , "Condolences; understanding" , "Fellow-feeling, compassion" , "Fellow-feeling in time of grief" , "Compassion (coming with tea)" .)