County council takes legal action to recover £7m spent on bypass

North Yorkshire County Council is set to take legal action against Highways England to recover £7m it has spent to upgrade the A63 Selby bypass.

The council said it had a duty to local taxpayers to try to cover the cost of its repairs to the road, which was built by the former Highways Agency in 2003 and transferred to North Yorkshire when de-trunked in 2009.

Soon after, the road started to deteriorate badly and North Yorkshire received numerous complaints from residents, businesses and road users.

The county said it was forced to carry out an enhanced inspections and reactive repairs to keep the road safe, while its investigations found fundamental problems with the road’s structure and the lower layers of its construction, requiring urgent permanent repairs.

North Yorkshire said it began talks with Highways England about responsibility for funding the repairs but the repairs had to be done regardless of where financial liability lay, so it carried out the works with Highways England’s agreement.

These cost £7.8m but the issue of financial liability remained unresolved while they were done.

Highways England offered a £2.89m contribution, which the council rejected as insufficient, but later withdrew this offer.

Executive member for Highways Don Mackenzie said: “We are very frustrated to find ourselves in a position where we have no choice, for the sake of the county’s taxpayers, but to take direct legal action to recover £7m.

“This is most of the cost that resulted from the substandard construction of the bypass when it was first built.

“We do not want to see significant amounts of public money being spent on legal fees, but as it stands the underinvestment and substandard work funded from central government has directly resulted in huge financial expenditure on the part of North Yorkshire taxpayers and this may have adverse consequences on funding of future work on our highways.”

A Highways England spokesperson said: “We are aware of North Yorkshire County Council’s intentions to pursue legal action regarding the A63 Selby bypass. We will be following the necessary legal proceedings in this matter.”

Mark Smulian