A1 Upgrade Scheme in Northumberland Cancelled in New Budget

A long-awaited scheme to upgrade the A1 as it runs through our region has been cancelled in the latest Budget, despite only being approved back in May.

The plan would have seen widening of the existing roads as well as new sections of carriageway over two stretches of the road, totalling 13 miles, to convert the A1 to dual carriageway all the way up to Ellingham in Northumberland.

Following numerous upgrades, including the removal of several roundabouts in our region, the dualled section of the A1 and A1(M) is currently a continuous 232-mile stretch from the Buckden Roundabout near St. Neot’s, Cambridgeshire, until it becomes a single carriageway road just north of Morpeth. Only short sections of road thereafter are dual carriageway, such as the Alnwick bypass.

Having first been proposed as far back as the 1990s, the plan as finally confirmed in May 2024 would have seen the sections before and after Alnwick — Morpeth to Felton, and Denwick to Ellingham — upgraded to dual carriageway, extending the continuous run by another 24 miles.

After repeated delays in the decision-making process since 2020, the Secretary of State for Transport Mark Harper approved the scheme in May, with funding previously allocated for the abandoned northern sections of the HS2 high-speed rail link made available to the A1 Morpeth to Ellingham plan — which had already seen £67m of spending — instead.

However new Chancellor Rachel Reeves has now cancelled the plan, with documents published after the Budget stating that the road scheme was “unfunded and unaffordable”, along with four other similarly abandoned plans that include the Princess Way upgrade in Liverpool.

Featured image via Highways Agency