PLANS to ease congestion on a major York road have been slammed by a councillor.

The £250 million proposed improvements to the A64 will see it dualled between York and Malton and a new flyover built to prevent traffic building up at Hopgrove roundabout.

However, Green councillor Andy D’Agorne has criticised the ideas which were announced by Robert Goodwill, junior transport minister and MP for Scarborough and Whitby, as “a monumental waste” and an eyesore.

He said: “Dualling part of the A64 and building a massive flyover at Hopgrove roundabout will be a monumental waste as well as a blot on York’s skyline.

“Dualling the road towards the east would help to clear traffic from the junction without the flyover but there will still be a bottleneck where this ends.

“Increasing the junction capacity with a flyover will just attract more traffic and make the jam there worse.”

He added: “At a time when there is insufficient budget for essential flood defences in the region this waste of money is a ‘lemming like’ decision, fuelling climate change and air pollution with increased vehicle emissions.”

However, businesses and councillors have all welcomed the work, which will come into construction by 2020/21.

Tom Paul, who is the director at Kingspan, a building materials company based in Sherburn-in-Elmet, said the improvements should increase the company’s competitiveness.

He said: “As a major manufacturing business, issues with the A64 are a significant competitive disadvantage and in the past we have had to divert investment elsewhere due to the time and cost impacts due to the existing A64 road hold-ups.”

He added: “With the £250 million allocated we need to see it implemented as quickly as possible to provide a link from York eastwards to connect with the existing dual carriageway.

“We trust this is a real and delivered plan which will actually be implemented.”

The major works were revealed in a breakdown of plans following the £15 billion road announcements in the Autumn Statement. Mr Goodwill said £250 million would be spent addressing congestion at the Hopgrove “pinch point” of the A64.