THE economic case for the upgrade of the York to Scarborough road has long been made - and long been ignored.

Earlier this year motoring group the RAC Foundation insisted that a ten-year, £20 billion improvements programme was necessary to prevent A64 congestion clotting the economic lifeblood of our region.

Then transport minister David Jamieson wrote to local councils in April to say that the Highways Agency study he ordered into the dualling of the A64 would be completed in six months. We are still waiting for it.

But if the transport authorities have proved reluctant to grasp the commercial imperative of improving the A64, we urge them to act more swiftly on the road's remaining safety problems.

Michael Oakley has often spoken out about the desperate need to improve dangerous stretches of the A64. As a North Yorkshire coroner, he knows all too well the tragic consequences of a road which is now inadequate for the scale and speed of traffic it carries.

At another inquest into the death of a motorist at the lethal Barton junction this week, he said: "It is now urgent that something is done at this notorious crossroads."

After 19 accidents, three of them fatal, the statistics speak for themselves. But will Whitehall listen?

If not for the sake of North Yorkshire's prosperity, then to save lives, the Government must now agree to invest in making the A64 a better, safer road.

Updated: 11:13 Wednesday, November 24, 2004