Motorway link across Yorkshire completed
Work to complete a south to north motorway route across Yorkshire which at last sees motorway all the way from London to Newcastle has finally had its third stage completed.The £380.3m project, started in 2014, to upgrade the last 12-mile section of the A1 in North Yorkshire to become A1(M) was expected to be completed a year ago, but Highways England finally announced its opening on March 29, 2018.
Although much of the A1 is still not motorway, the upgrade will means at last it is possible to travel by motorway from London across Yorkshire to the North East of England on motorway via a combination of the M1 and upgraded A1(M) north of Leeds.
It comes more than 58 years after the first stretch of M1 was opened and more than 56 years after the first section of A1(M), the Doncaster by-pass, which even now still has ordinary two-lane dual-carriageway beyond its ends.
Delays have been put down to the digging up of Roman artefacts, including a large number of important archealogical finds at Scotch Corner, together with power cable and utilities work.
Excavation of the route, following the original route of the Dere Street Roman road, has led to the unearthing of a Roman settlement at Scotch Corner which pre-dates settlements at York and Carlisle and suggests Roman exapansion in the north a decade earlier than previously thought.
Also in Yorkshire.guide