Northumberland Labour leader Scott Dickinson says a future Labour county council will be pushing a, hopefully, Labour government to finally make the improvements which have, for many years, been so badly needed on the A1.

He said: “The government has played the transport hokey cokey with the A1. It’s a major arterial route for the east side of the country, yet it still has sections which are narrow and dangerous. It’s disappointing that our current council leaders appear to have had little or no influence on the government to resolve this issue.

“Should a Labour county council be elected I will make road improvements one of my priorities. Like Cornwall, we are one of the farthest counties from London and it shows. We hear little talk of levelling up now, but Northumberland needs decent, safe roads.

“The section from Morpeth to Ellingham 25 miles short of Berwick has been subject to stop-start ‘planning’, if you can call it that. Even when Berwick MP Anne Marie Trevelyan was Transport Secretary she couldn’t deliver this improvement for the people on her own patch.

“I will campaign, lobby and fight for the things in our county that other areas take for granted. My aim will be to make Northumberland the best place in the country to live. One strand of that will to have accessible safe roads for public, commercial and private transport.”