The Mayor of York and North Yorkshire has been accused of inaction over long-awaited plans to dual the A64.
But Labour Mayor David Skaith has hit back at the criticism from Conservative MP for Thirsk and Malton, Kevin Hollinrake, saying the Tories had 14 years to improve the road without the work taking place.
Mr Hollinrake claims his Freedom of Information (FOI) request has highlighted a pattern of “spin, evasion and inaction” in relation to dualling the A64 road between York and Scarborough.
The FOI which was submitted in January sought to obtain documents from the mayor’s office about the dualling proposals.
The MP claimed the papers reveal that the Mayor’s staff have shifted the goalposts of their transport policy to talk about “improving” the A64 rather than “dualling it”, and then to highlight other forms of transport, such as bus and rail services, as an alternative to driving on the A64.
In one email exchange, a Combined Authority staff member wrote:
“You’ll notice I changed the email header to say A64 improvements, which avoids the specific reference to dualling.”
Mr Hollinrake said:
“During the election campaign, David Skaith claimed transport was the biggest issue he wanted to solve.
“Yet, almost a year into the job, there’s still no clear plan to address the region’s most pressing transport problem: the A64 bottleneck.
“The Mayor hadn’t even written to the Roads Minister about the issue until after I submitted a Freedom of Information request.”
He added:
“While he claims to support road improvements, it’s obvious he prefers bus and rail solutions – without being honest with me or the public about where he stands on the A64.”
Councillor Chris Steward, leader of the Conservative Group on York City Council, also criticised the Mayor for a lack of progress on the scheme.
He said:
“A year ago, everyone from politicians to businesses to residents, seemed to agree that improving transport should be the biggest focus of the new Mayor.
“It is therefore incredibly disappointing to see such an abject failure on the crucial A64.”
But in response, Mr Skaith said the Tories had 14 years to dual the A64 without the work taking place.
“Kevin Hollinrake has been an MP for most of that time and Rishi Sunak was an MP in our area. They didn’t do it in all that time.”
He added:
“It is not a case of either or. We need an integrated system, which given the rural nature of our region the car will always have a role in.
“That’s why I am regularly asking government for long-term transport and highways funding to allow us to fix our bus network, improve our rail services, and, if the money becomes available – dual the A64.”
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