PLANS to replace a dangerous junction at an accident blackspot on the A19 near Selby has hit the buffers after funding cuts.

Residents in Riccall have been pushing for road improvements at the junction at south entrance to the village for more than five years.

An £800,000 scheme to replace the dangerous junction with a roundabout was in North Yorkshire County Council's capital funding programme for this year and next year.

Plans had been drawn up and only the compulsory purchase of land adjourning the junction was required before work could begin next April. But now a funding shortage in North Yorkshire County Council's highways department has left the project postponed indefinitely.

Liz Casling, Escrick and Riccall councillor on Selby District Council and North Yorkshire County Council, said: "For months I was told by the county council that we were only waiting for the compulsory purchase orders to go through, and then work could begin.

"At the last Riccall Parish Council meeting I was asked about the scheme.

"For months I have been told it is been a matter of this and that needing to be done, but the money for the work was there.

"But now the highways department say it is unlikely that the project will go ahead because the capital funding programme is under review."

Peter Sowray, the county council's highways boss, said: "The capital programme is under review and the Riccall scheme is one of the most expensive we have in the programme.

"We appreciate why the roundabout needs to be done, and we appreciate that it is a dangerous junction, but we cannot do it just yet.

"The local transport plan was not as good as we were expecting in terms of funding.

"We do not have the funding ourselves, and the Government isn't giving us any more money for big projects.

"It is still in the programme, we just do not know when it will happen. It definitely will not be before April next year. That is the best we can offer at the moment."

He said no new major projects for the next two years had been approved by the regional transport board in North Yorkshire.