VITAL repairs to a railway crossing will close a main road through North Yorkshire for three days in the New Year.

THE A684 will be closed at Bedale for work to be carried out to the crossing by the Wensleydale Railway.

Recent works to upgrade the A1 caused massive damage on the crossing with more than half a million lorry movements as wagons travelled to and from quarries further up the Dales.

The crossing between Aiskew and Bedale takes the main A684 road across the line. Diversions will take traffic south to Leeming.

The road will be fully closed from January 12 to 15, but there will be traffic light controls on the crossing from January 3 to approximately January 20.

Councillor Carl Les, a director of the Wensleydale Railway, said: "This is something that needs to be done, there is a huge amount of traffic going over that crossing.

"With the road building on the A1 there have been over half a million lorry movements out of the quarries and they have taken their toll.

"The directors of Wensleydale Railway are really very sorry that this will cause inconvenience but that work is absolutely vital from an engineering and a road safety point of view.”