Road block

Yet, when motorists come off the improved road, they will be immediately held up at Bedale where residents have been campaigning for a bypass for two decades.

A repeated victim of spending cuts and greater importance being attached to other schemes, North Yorkshire County Council has now given its backing to the project after acknowledging that further delays will only lead to even greater costs in the future.

While County Hall’s backing is welcome, there’s no guarantee that it will win funding from the Department for Transport to meet the £40m shortfall that will still exist if the scheme is not backed by Whitehall.

What will bemuse many is why this bypass, and other improvements at Leeming Bar, were not considered when the original decision was taken to widen the A1. If planners had looked at the bigger picture back then, the work could have been undertaken for a fraction of the bill now confronting councillors, taxpayers and Ministers.