PEOPLE whose lives are likely to be affected by revived plans for a three-lane A1 motorway between Dishforth and Barton must see new designs as soon as possible, a senior official of the Highways Agency has been told.

An announcement by the agency has revealed that the officially quoted cost of the upgrade has risen by £67m in less than two years.

A £330m contract has been awarded to a joint venture between Alfred McAlpine and AMEC for the work, which will involve new junctions at Baldersby, Leeming Bar and Catterick and improvements to existing ones at Dishforth, Scotch Corner and Barton.

The Highways Agency on Tuesday confirmed that the project is still on course to start in 2007, with completion envisaged for the spring of 2010.

Millions of pounds were poured into surveys, designs, public consultations and compensation to owners of blighted properties when the agency was originally planning the upgrade ten years ago.

The plans were shelved in 1996 after £270m was cut from the national roads programme and properties bought by the agency to make way for the widening were put back on the open market the following year.

In June 2002, the Government announced that the upgrade was being revived, with a price tag at that time of £263m.

On Tuesday, the Highways Agency said the chosen contractor - who is becoming involved at an early stage in an attempt to speed up the programme - would develop detailed design proposals in preparation for the publication of draft motorway orders in the spring of 2005. The public would then have the chance to make formal comments.

On Monday, the North Yorkshire County Council committee for Hambleton was addressed by A1 route manager Andrew Jennings not only on the upgrade but on more immediate safety schemes and programmes for resurfacing sections of the heavily used road.

Coun John Weighell told Mr Jennings: "Many people have lived with the possibility of an upgraded A1 for a very long time and are looking forward to it.

"What people need to know locally is exactly what the plans are going to be and how they will affect their lives and properties, where accesses are and how good the service road will be.

"Most of us take the view that it was the greatest mistake ever made to buy some properties and then sell them off again after the original plans were shelved.

"Detailed design work has been done once and was in place in the mid-Nineties. This has been a very unsatisfactory state of affairs. The problems with this road over that length of time have been ridiculous."

Mr Jennings explained that the agency could not simply dust off the original plans and added: "There are different design standards and layouts today. We can use a great deal of the original design, but we have to make sure that it is still an appropriate design."

Projected timescales outlined by Mr Jennings, in a presentation heard by about 30 members of the public, appeared to be at variance with the official announcement of the contract the following day by the Highways Agency, where a spokeswoman suspected there had been a breakdown in communications.

She said local consultations in the spring of 2005 would probably be followed by a public inquiry in 2006. If approval followed, permanent motorway orders would be made early in 2007, with work starting later that year.

The revived upgrade has raised hopes that Bedale, Aiskew and Leeming Bar will finally get their relief road, being designed by the county council to connect with a new A1 junction at Leeming Bar.