COUNCILLORS and a coroner have called for urgent action to be taken to improve one of the North's busiest roads which also has a high accident rate.

Murray Naylor, deputy leader of North Yorkshire County Council said public worries over safety and inadequacy of the A64 York to Scarborough road, the subject of a long-running campaign for improvements, are not being taken seriously.

Councillor Naylor, a leading campaigner to upgrade the busy lifeline road from the coast across to the motorway network, told the county council's Ryedale area committee at Terrington that, despite the concerns of residents, industrialists and many organisations, "very little progress has been made".

Coun Naylor, who represents the Rillington division of the county council, said: "People are becoming very sceptical about what action is being taken and see that what has been done as prevarication until further action is carried out."

He added that he was further concerned that the date of the the building of the Rillington by-pass, initially due to start in 2006, had been put back a year.

The committee was told by Jenny Charlesworth, the Highways Agency's assistant route manager for the A64 that long- term improvements for the A64 are on the drawing board. Priority is to be given to work at Barton Hill crossroads - one of the road's worst accident blackspots - Whitwell-on-the-Hill, Crambeck-Welburn crossroads, Golden Hill and Musley Bank.

Other schemes to be carried out later are at Brambling Fields, Hazelbush crossroads, Sand Hutton junction, Flaxton-Caxton junctions, and High Hutton, she said. Studies are to be carried out by consultants employed by the Agency on the priority schemes this year.

The North Yorkshire East Coroner, Michael Oakley, said he was becoming increasingly concerned and frustrated that the death rate on the A64 was rising.

He said it was vital that consideration should be given to making the road dual carriageway along its entire length, which would not only improve road safety but improve the economy of the Yorkshire coast and Ryedale.