Welcome to the North; but without a welcoming light unless you are headed south.

For that is what drivers now find each night at the new A1M-A64 Bramham crossroads junction between Tadcaster and Leeds.

The route north after the brightly-lit new M1 motorway suddenly becomes dramatically less welcoming.

As drivers enter the gloom of the north with no lighting columns, southern-bound drivers have a well-lit route to the A1M from the Hazlewood Castle turning on the A64.

Then, there is the improved A64, a major route towards York and the East Coast from Leeds.

The A1-A64 roundabout of 30 years ago was scrapped in favour of a dual carriageway and flyover which had been well lit for a number of years.

Today? We're back to a roundabout and one without any lights at all for the past month!

The lamp standards are there, but some have no fittings, there are large gaps between others.

A couple are now in the middle of a field and ones on the northern side of the roundabout were switched off last month.

And that same roundabout has a strange outward camber on its northern side plus amazingly sharp approach turns from the A64.

An accident waiting to happen. Strange things happen on the A64, unless you are headed south.

Quentin Gray,

Monk Stray,

Heworth,

York.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.