Roadworks on the A64 look set to play a vital role in linking market towns in North and East Yorkshire to the information superhighway.

Work is under way to lay a fibre-optic link between York and the East Coast, bringing cable television and telephone services to Scarborough and Whitby.

Cable and Wireless, the firm behind the scheme, says such technology could reach Malton, Pickering, Tadcaster, Selby and Goole in a few years.

The "superhighway" currently bypasses them as efforts are concentrated on hooking up larger population centres like Leeds, York and Harrogate.

Bell Cable Media, telecommunications firm Mercury, Nynex and Videotron merged into the Cable and Wireless Group late last year to form Cable and Wireless Communications. Area construction manager Tony Hardy said work to lay a new fibre-optic link between York and Scarborough and then via Whitby to Redcar was part of a £15 million expansion programme.

The 170km cable will hook up with an international link from Germany at Redcar. Contractors are now three weeks into a 14-week programme of works intended for completion before the tourist season gets into full swing.

Mr Hardy said: "At the moment, I'm happy that we are relatively on schedule and I think we have only lost about half a day due to the weather."

Cable-laying work is being carried out at the same time as a £380,000 resurfacing scheme on a 2.5km stretch of the A64 between Lobster House and Harton Lodge, near Claxton. Asked whether there was any prospect of Cable and Wireless extending its services to smaller towns, Mr Hardy said: "Malton, Pickering, Tadcaster, Selby and Goole are in an area that is, as yet, unlicensed.

"There are about another 50,000 premises in that area, but it would be relatively expensive to link them up because of the greater distances involved. I'm sure it will come along, but it might be two or three years down the line yet."

lTailbacks built up over the weekend as traffic took up to half an hour to get through Rillington, where cable-laying operations had restricted the width of the road.

Davy Crockett, streetworks co-ordinator at North Yorkshire County Council, said similar problems were expected when the cable team reached Sherburn and Staxton.

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