Government accused of playing 'transport hokey cokey' with A1 in Northumberland

A proposed upgrade to 13 miles of single carriageway between Morpeth and Ellingham is currently on hold with a final decision from the Transport Secretary expected in September.

Plans to dual an eight mile section between Morpeth and Felton and a further five miles between Alnwick and Ellingham have already been stalled three times and it is eight years since the Conservative government made a £290m commitment to the project.

Cllr Scott Dickinson, leader of Northumberland Labour and Druridge Bay ward member for Northumberland County Council, hopes a future Labour administration at County Hall and Westminster will finally enable the improvements to happen.

He said: “The government has played the transport hokey cokey with the A1. It's a major arterial route for the east side of the country, yet it still has sections which are narrow and dangerous. It's disappointing that our current council leaders appear to have had little or no influence on the government to resolve this issue.

“Should a Labour county council be elected I will make road improvements one of my priorities. Like Cornwall, we are one of the farthest counties from London and it shows. We hear little talk of levelling up now, but Northumberland needs decent, safe roads.

“The section from Morpeth to Ellingham 25 miles short of Berwick has been subject to stop-start 'planning', if you can call it that. Even when Berwick MP Anne Marie Trevelyan was Transport Secretary she couldn't deliver this improvement for the people on her own patch.

“I will campaign, lobby and fight for the things in our county that other areas take for granted. My aim will be to make Northumberland the best place in the country to live. One strand of that will to have accessible safe roads for public, commercial and private transport.”

Ms Trevelyan and the Conservative-led council administration continue to press the case for dualling.

Hopes were raised under Liz Truss’s brief tenure as Prime Minister when the dualling of the A1 was included in a list of infrastructure projects the government wanted to get started by the end of 2023.

In December, the Department of Transport said the scheme had been delayed for ‘consideration of environmental matters’.