Monday 4th April 2005

Two sides of a Yorkshire village, divided by one of the UK’s busiest roads, were reunited when Highways Agency officials opened the northbound carriageway of the new A1 motorway between Micklefield and Brotherton in North Yorkshire. The new section of the A1 took vehicles away from Fairburn where residents used a bridge to get from one side of the village to the other. The old A1 through Fairburn was converted into a quiet local road. Up to 60,000 vehicles – a third of them HGVs – had been using the dual carriageway through the village every day.