Julian Smith MP is convening a meeting with North Yorkshire County Council Executives over the recent closure of the A59 at Kex Gill.
The Member of Parliament for Skipton and Ripon will discuss long-term options for the A59 at Kex Gill.
At this meeting Julian Smith will formally launch the ‘Kex Gill Bypass Campaign’ at a summit with transport ministers planned for later this year.
Julian Smith MP said:
The disruption of the recent months is unsustainable. We now need to look longer term at how this key Trans-Pennine route is configured.
I will be holding initial meetings with North Yorkshire County Council this month and want to campaign to support their Kex Gill by-pass plans over the coming years.
County Councillor Don Mackenzie, North Yorkshire’s Executive Member for Highways said:
I welcome the significant support of Julian Smith MP in whose constituency Kex Gill is located. The re-routing of the A59, an important trans-Pennine route preferred by many North Yorkshire residents to the M62, is a top priority for North Yorkshire County Council, both in our recently published Strategic Transport Prospectus, and in our latest Local Transport Plan (LTP4) which the County Council expects will be adopted by Members at the County Council meeting on 24 February.
An initial estimate of the cost of the diversion of the A59 away from the problematic slope at Kex Gill is £33m. The County is preparing a detailed bid for the funding. The benefit to our residents and taxpayers of the new route would be very great indeed, both in terms of a significant reduction in maintenance and repair costs, such as we are incurring with this latest closure, and also in providing a more reliable transport system which will avoid costly and time-consuming diversions in future.
