Stop-start on A1

Travelling northwards through Yorkshire, car drivers will benefit from a widened M1 once the hard shoulder is converted into an extra lane. So far, so good.

Journey times will also be cut once widening work on the A1 between Dishforth and Leeming is completed. This has been a notorious bottleneck for decades.

And then normal service resumes. For, while Transport Secretary Philip Hammond understandably highlighted those schemes that are going ahead, he glossed over those much-needed projects that have been left in the slow lane.

Perversely, they include the notorious stretch of A1 north of Leeming that also needs to be brought up to motorway standard, a scheme that already has seen millions of pounds spent on preparatory work at the public's expense.

Yet, rather than announcing that work will begin as soon as the existing improvements south of Leeming have been concluded, the project has been downgraded by Mr Hammond.

On two counts, the Minister needs to think again. First, this short-sighted decision makes a mockery of David Cameron's transport commitment to the regions. Second, Conservative MPs did not oppose the last Government's decision to press ahead with the final leg of the A1 improvements because they supposedly understood the scheme's economic importance to Yorkshire and North-East.

Now they are in power, they must, somehow, put an end to the stop-start nature of policy-making.