Richard Holden, MP for North West Durham, has welcomed the news that the A66 will receive a huge £1 billion in investment for upgrades. The upgrade will include providing dualling alongside much of the existing single carriageways, something that more than 92% of people supported.
The A66 is one of Northern England’s main roads, running from the far east of Middlesborough through to Cumbria – it links the M6 at Penrith with the A1(M) at Scotch Corner, North Yorkshire. It is one of the North’s key regional routes and the upgrade will support tourism, help freight traffic and improve connections across the North East. There will be new underpasses, new bypasses, conversion of single roads into dual carriageways, improvements to junctions to ensure safer travel and upgrades for pedestrians and cyclists. All villages being bypassed will benefit from a huge reduction in traffic as well as more connectivity.
All options being studied will now go into a period of further analysis and design before second phases of public consultation next year. Further information can be found here or by visiting the project website here.
One of Richard’s six key pledges to North West Durham was to improve transport in the constituency and the wider region – you can read about this here. Richard has been campaigning for better bus services, a new rail link and improvements to roads in North West Durham, which you can read about here and here.
Commenting, Richard said ‘The A66 is one of the major, most important routes Northern England and the £1 billion investment that has been announced will go a huge way in improving the roads in County Durham and ensuring that North West Durham is connected to the North East – the investment will lead to less congestion, better transport systems, much faster journeys and will support tourism across the North East. Crucially, the improvements will mean that roads are safer for those travelling by car, bike or foot. This is all part of the Government’s pledge to level up the North and ensure we have the same access to funding as the rest of the country. This is a really brilliant investment for the North East and I am going to continue to campaign for improvements to transport and transport infrastructure in the constituency.’
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