ROADWORKS on the A64 near York have cost the region's retail trade more than £100 million, a city businessman claimed today.

Stuart Paver based his calculations on the estimated cost of the disruption to his stores in York city centre, the MacArthur Glen Designer Outlet at Fulford and in Scarborough, which he puts at £150,000.

He said: "Multiply this figure by the thousands of retailers in all the towns around here and you have an idea of the cost. This has cost retailers in the region well over £100 million."

Contraflows and single-lane traffic have caused major tailbacks since the work to build an underpass at Copmathorpe began last summer, with severe congestion again at the weekend.

Mr Paver, founder and managing director of York-based Internet shoe store, shoe-shop.com, who was last week nominated as one of 42 people aged under 42 who are most likely to influence the region's economy over the next ten years, believes the roadworks have also had social and environmental consequences in terms of pollution and rat-running in York.

He said: "Who can count the cost to families of parents having to spend an extra hour or more travelling to and from work in stressful traffic jams?"

While he accepted the need to change the junction, which has been the scene of numerous crashes, he questioned the need for the underpass, believing Copmanthorpe traffic could have been directed on to the A1237 bridge to cross the A64.

Len Cruddas, of York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, said today he agreed there had a cost to business from the roadworks, although he did not know how much.

A Highways Agency spokeswoman said today that the cost of any congestion had to be balanced against the costs in terms of injury and loss of life caused by the old traffic light-controlled junction.

" The new junction will bring substantial benefits in terms of improved safety and reduced congestion," she said.Motorists travelling from the A64 into York via Tadcaster Road have been given a boost with the reintroduction of a filter lane on the westbound carriageway. This allows drivers to avoid getting stuck in jams caused by single-lane restrictions further along the A64.

Updated: 11:43 Monday, April 22, 2002