YP Letters: A59 near Harrogate is another short-term fix for major road across North

THE A59 up the cutting at Kex Gill was reopened on Saturday after repair work to the hillside had been carried out. This came as a great relief to many of us in this area, and particularly to business owners.

The A59 is a major road link between Teesside and Lancashire and carries a heavy load of goods traffic as well as private transport between Harrogate and Skipton.

However this fact seems to have escaped the notice of the transport authorities, who continue to carry out piecemeal repairs as and when necessary to repair recurring problems without ever addressing the obvious solution which is so plain to most other people. It would appear that £1.5m has been expended in repairs over the past years, all of which have been for temporary remedies to keep the old road operational.

I read that Coun Don Mackenzie, North Yorkshire’s executive member for highways, has explained the obvious and told us that the road is liable to slippage because it runs along a hillside – wow! Why didn’t we think of that? For well over half a century we have known that the only permanent solution to this would be to re-route the road.

Now to the crux of the problem and why this wasn’t done years ago – it will be a relatively expensive project to carry out properly and it is in the North of England.

The Government of the time is very happy to throw billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money at transport schemes in London and the South East of the country – witness £14.8bn on Crossrail 1 and a proposed £28bn on Crossrail 2 in London, while they will not sanction a very small proportion of such expenditure for major traffic routes in the North, hence the make-do-and-mend patching up and recurring inconvenience.

All inhabitants of this country are subject to the same rules of taxation.

Is it not time that the expenditure of this income was also fairly and evenly distributed for the benefit of all, no matter what part of the country we inhabit? Additionally it is crucial that this road improvement is carried out very soon, not in 20, 30 or 40 years time when it has been passed around by the authorities with schemes and consultations and about-turns and changes of political powers until it is lost in oblivion.

It is no good resorting to the the ballot box to solve this situation as all governments, of whichever colour, have the same London-centric bias.

However, I hope that this letter gives some cause for thought to relevant people in authority.