Rishi Sunak has again urged the government to give the go-ahead for work to start on the A66 upgrade following a meeting with the Roads Minister.
Mr Sunak met Minister Lilian Greenwood along with Tim Farron, the MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, to ask the Government to press ahead with the £1.3bn scheme to dual the remaining stretches of single carriageway.
Work on the scheme, due to start early in 2025, was put on hold by the new Government following July’s General Election.
Mr Sunak said the meeting allowed him and Mr Farron, whose constituency covers the western end of the vital strategic route, to make the case for the upgrading work to commence as soon as possible.
He said: “The Minister acknowledged that the safety record of the A66 is very poor which I think is extremely important. Within days of our meeting there was another serious accident on the North Yorkshire stretch of the road which only served to underline the necessity for getting work started on the project as soon as possible.”
Major construction work on upgrading the notorious 50-mile stretch of road between Scotch Corner and Penrith was expected to start in early 2025 after the project received planning consent in March 2024.
The proposed £1.3 billion upgrade will see the entire route dualled and enhanced with key safety and capacity improvements.
But the whole scheme was called into question when the new Government initiated an internal review of ongoing, scheduled and confirmed transport projects.
Mr Sunak said the continuing delay was hugely disappointing. In Government as Chancellor he had overseen a project which cut the proposed delivery time for the scheme in half, bringing forward the completion date by five years to 2029.
Earlier this year, the project had faced an unrelated delay after an anti-roads pressure group, the Transport Action Network, sought to challenge the planning consent for the project. Its legal challenge to the High Court was ultimately rejected by the High Court in October this year.
Mr Sunak said: “The further delay to work on this scheme, which is ready to start, is frustrating for the users of this vital Northern transport link and the people who live alongside it in communities like Ravensworth, the Laytons and Dalton who face the daily dangers of getting on and off the congested single carriageway sections.”
He said that in the meeting with the Minister, he and Mr Farron had repeated points made in a joint letter to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in October.
This highlighted safety concerns about the existing road and that twelve people had died on the route since 2023.
They wrote: “We hope to persuade you to commit to backing this project with the funding it needs. The longer it is left under review, the longer our constituents are left in uncertainty, and the longer preventable accidents will continue. You can – and must – act swiftly to stop these horrifying accidents.”
The MPs’ meeting with the Future of Roads Minister Ms Greenwood came within days of another serious collision on the North Yorkshire section of the road, resulting in three people being treated in hospital and a lengthy closure of the road.
“This latest accident is a stark reminder of why the A66 upgrade is so urgently needed.” said the Richmond and Northallerton MP.
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