Highways England has announced a £500,000 project to widen the A66 carriageway is scheduled to begin.

A single lane carriageway section of the route near Troutbeck is to be widened to provide space for two new dedicated right turns.

The turns will relieve queuing behind vehicles waiting to turn into local roads and also reduce the potential for shunt style collisions.

Highways England project manager Peter Gee said: "This work will provide a dedicated waiting space for vehicles wishing to turn right into junctions serving these 2 businesses – removing a bottleneck on the main carriageway and providing safer, more reliable journeys."


Work on the project will start on 14 September and is expected to be completed by 8 November.

Highways England contractors will be on site most of the time and there will be a 40mph speed limit in place for the safety of road workers and drivers.

The work will require the use of temporary traffic signals. These will be restricted to off-peak times, between 9.30am and 3.30pm, during the day.

Between 8pm and 6am each night there will be occasions when drivers will be held at the temporary traffic lights and led past the road works in 10 mph convoys by a contractor's vehicle.

Temporary traffic signals may be used occasionally at peak times during reconstruction of the carriageway.

(LM)