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Public inquiry into Cumberland Gap
Page 14
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PLANS TO UPGRADE the A74 between Carlisle and Scotland into a motorway are to go to public inquiry following a string of objections to the new road from local residents and farmers.
The 9km/.£174m extension of the M6 would form what the Highways Agency has described as the -missing link" in the motorway network between England and Scotland. The A74 is used by 10,000 trucks every day.
The section of road involved is known as the Cumberland Gap;it is the only section of non-motorwaystandard road on the primary London-Glasgow route. It runs into the M74 on the Scottish side of the border.
A spokesman for the highways Agency says that the 27 objections ranged from concerns about disruption during construction to the effect on property prices. It wants to start work in summer 2006 with a completion date of 2008.
But Stephen Murray, director of Longtown-based RJ Murray, says the money earmarked for the project could be better spent elsewhere: "I just don't see the road as an issue.The problems we have had in the past have always been down to accidents which would have shut a three-lane motorway too.