BY BRIAN REDHEAD

LOCAL people hope that revived plans for a three-lane motorway between Dishforth and Barton will not fall victim to another round of Government spending cuts.

Two public exhibitions of the £325m proposals, which have been delayed by a year, are to be held at local venues in the next two weeks but the eventual fate of the programme still appears to depend on funding becoming available.

A Highways Agency spokesman said in a qualified statement: "The scheme is included within the targeted programme of improvements with an approved budget of £325m. Subject to availability of funding and completion of the relevant statutory procedures, work is programmed to begin in 2008 with completion in 2011. All Government spending is, of course, subject to review in the light of changing circumstances."

Before work starts, the current proposed programme envisages the publication of draft motorway orders in November and a public inquiry in 2006.

Details of the proposed improvements, resurrected in 2002, will go on show on June 3 (10am-8pm) and June 4 (10am-4pm) in The Courtyard suite at The Lodge at Leeming Bar and at the same times on June 10 and 11 at the Scotch Corner Hotel.

Representatives from the Highways Agency, design consultants Bullens and contractors from Alfred McAlpine and Amec, who have formed a joint venture to do the work, will be available to answer questions.

The motorway scheme is designed to reduce the high levels of accidents and congestion and improve journey time reliability by widening a route which has remained unchanged since it was built almost 50 years ago.

The proposed route is generally on the line of the existing road, with a local offline section at Catterick South, west of Bainesse Farm, and includes a new A1 interchange north of Leeming Bar through which a relief road planned by North Yorkshire County Council for Bedale, Aiskew and Leeming Bar would run.

Plans for the motorway were first unveiled in 1991, when the then Department of Transport gave a possible starting date of 1996 for a project costing an estimated £130m.

After extensive consultations and one public inquiry the scheme was shelved in 1996 after £270m was cut from the national roads programme.

The scheme was revived three years ago but by 2004 the price had almost tripled with the official award of a contract, the chosen joint bidders becoming involved at an early stage in an attempt to speed up a programme then due to start in 2007.

Just before last Christmas, however, it was announced that the scheme would be delayed by a year because of a comprehensive spending review.

Earlier this year it was revealed that the Highways Agency had spent almost £12m on motorway plans between 1989 and 2004 with nothing to show for it.

Some properties said to be in the way of the upgrade, including the Bedale Hunt pub at Sinderby, were bought up and demolished in the early stages but others had to be put back on the open market after the shelving of 1996. Some failed to find new buyers because of continuing blight and remain boarded up.

Bob Pocklington, outgoing chairman of Aiskew and Leeming Bar Parish Council, said: "We have waited long enough bearing in mind that very few if any schemes have not cost what they were predicted to cost. A brilliant opportunity to do this scheme when first planned was lost.

"Compensation paid to landowners won't have gone down, property was bought up and then sold and will now have to be bought back.

"Another delay would be very unwelcome from the viewpoint of travellers and local people and would be even more costly and a sheer waste of money to no effect. Someone has to be bold enough to say this scheme has now got to go ahead.

"A relief road for this area through a new A1 junction at Leeming Bar is vitally important when you see the effects of roadworks and the amount of traffic."

David Cornmell, chairman of Rainton Parish Council, said he was generally pleased with the proposals including the retention of a new £1.5m overbridge built to take traffic away from a blackspot crossroads on the A1 near the village.

The inclusion of a new junction at Dishforth, not mentioned in the previous scheme, meant there would be no need for a local access road taking land and the motorway would not be moved closer to Rainton.

He added: "The proposals are good news if the money is there, but it is all dependent on whether the Government is going to pay at the end of the day."

Carl Les, whose North Yorkshire County Council division of Catterick will be affected by the planned road, said: "I think people want to see this project delivered sooner rather than later. We have been waiting for over 12 years and it must be our turn now.

"It is a nonsense that such a busy stretch of the A1 is the missing link between the blue motorways in the north and the south."

He welcomed the inclusion of a local access road but issues of detail still to be addressed included the impact on the community of the planned Catterick central junction and the number of proposed overbridges for all traffic designed to deal with severance on the east and west sides of the route.

* Leading article: page 22