YOUR news item about the projected Government Route Management Strategies (July 28), followed by your leading article (July 31) on possible improvements to the A64, could not be more timely.

While a substantial portion of this road from the outskirts of Leeds to the approaches to Scarborough is dual carriageway, there are at least four lengthy stretches of single carriageway as well, with all the potential for congestion, frustration and danger which this entails.

It is a typical example of the absurdly piecemeal nature of road planning in Britain since the dawn of the mass motoring area.

It was surely obvious long before the Second World War that the principal road from the old industrial West Riding to the Yorkshire coastal resorts was always going to be heavily used.

Yet the process of dualling and improving the road has been sporadic and half-hearted, with no substantial improvements having been carried out since the York, Tadcaster and Malton by-passes were built in the 1970s.

No one wants to see a return to indiscriminate road-building, but the A64 should have been a prime candidate for upgrading for many years. It would have been if it had been in southern England

On environmental grounds alone, it is better that traffic travels smoothly and safely to and from the Leeds-Bradford conurbation and Scarborough and Bridlington etc, instead of the congestion and near-suicidal overtaking on the single carriageway stretches that goes on at the moment. Funding should be allocated for this long-overdue work.

G B Davies,

Pear Tree Avenue,

Upper Poppleton, York.