York's highways projects equal 'pain for gain' councillors told

People in York are to suffer "short-term pain for long-term gain" as major highway projects take place simultaneously, officials said.

Schemes include 2,500 homes to be built near the railway station and work on two busy roads.

Maintenance work on the ring-road is also underway, with an upgrade to the railway station planned for Autumn.

At a council transport meeting on Tuesday Councillor Peter Kilbane said the situation was "frustrating".

However, he told councillors the many projects "should make it easier for everybody to move about the city".

Leeman Road in the city is being rerouted to allow two halves of the National Railway Museum to be united with a rotunda.

At the same time a £6.4m upgrade to the three-mile long Tadcaster road aims to upgrade walking, cycling and bus travel.

Meanwhile the £650m York Central project will see up to 2,500 homes and 86,600 square metres of office space built near the city's railway station.

A planning application to improve the city's outer ring road has also been submitted with the aim of reducing congestion.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Mr Kilbane, the executive member for economy and transport said "we understand that it's going to be frustrating" and added, the roads in York were "in a terrible state".

He said: "The issue we can't get away from is that the road networks across the UK have been [in] a managed state of decline for over a decade and we need to try to do something to address that."

Next year, the public will elect a Mayor of North Yorkshire and Mr Kilbane said the council was "arguing strongly for that combined authority to bring some investment into the road network".

However, he also admitted he had a challenge in front of him, saying: "It's an estimated cost of £190m to get all of our roads back up to a very good standard."

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