AN additional £5.1m is to be spent on road schemes across North Yorkshire over the next 12 months in an effort to support the economic growth of the county.

The money comes from the Government’s National Productivity Investment Fund, a pot of £185m to improve road networks and public transport announced in the Chancellor’s autumn statement last year.

The county council must spend the money during the next financial year on transpoirt schemes designed to boost productivity, transport, digital communications, research and development or housing.

The spending will be on top of the county’s annual highways expenditure of around £65m on managing, maintaining and improving roads.

The authority’s assistant director for highways and transportation, Barrie Mason, said: “As well as looking at our own highways priorities, we consulted colleagues in district and borough councils.

“The draft programme compiled following this process will meet the Government’s requirements to ease congestion and upgrade important roads, unlock job creation opportunities and enable the delivery of vital housing development.”

Schemes in the programme include spending up to £100,000 to buy state-of-the-art traffic and journey time data collection equipment to allow congestion monitoring and provide real-time congestion information to urban traffic management control systems.

Ings Lane in Kirkbymoorside will be upgraded at a cost of £475,000 to remove barriers to growth and unlock job creation opportunities for two advanced engineering employers in Ryedale. The scheme will incorporate a package of upgrades, including:alterations to the roundabout with the A170 to allow easier HGV turning movements; and localised widening, strengthening and edge reinforcement on Ings Lane.

The county council will also contribute up to £1.2m to a £3.5m scheme to provide capacity and safety improvements at the junction of the A1(M) and A59 junction

That scheme includes traffic signals on all approaches to the junction 47, widening on all approaches to accommodate left turn flares on both divergent slips, increasing the length of both right turn flares on the A59 approaches.