THE fate of the long-awaited A65 bypasses lies with the Government and whether it will give the go-ahead to yet another road study.

Over the years thousands has been spent on consultants, reports and public inquiries into bypasses for Long Preston, Hellifield and Gargrave - yet the roads are no nearer being built.

The A65 is no longer seen as a road of national importance and consequently is being "detrunked". Last week the Highways Agency placed notices in the Craven Herald stating it proposed to revoke orders authorising construction of the bypasses.

The orders have to be revoked before the road is "detrunked" and responsibility is transferred to North Yorkshire County Council. It will then have to go through the process of funding a new study to see how to relieve congestion in the villages.

Elwyn Williams, group engineer for NYCC, said the council was trying to move forward to ease transport problems in the villages. However he admitted it was now unlikely large scale bypasses would go ahead with the schemes being replaced by smaller relief roads.

"Historically the county council has looked at bypass schemes and there is an expectation from the communities that they would have bypasses," said Mr Williams.

"There has been substantial study work done and time spent on trying to bring schemes forward but the difficulty is the schemes were looked at from the trunk road perspective and now they are being detrunked.

"A bypass on its own is not the way forward and we are in discussions with the Highways Agency to see if we can take it further with a more holistic approach.

"It's difficult to say what the outcome will be. We need to convince the Government any money is worthwhile as while the responsibility for the roads passes to North Yorkshire County Council, we would have to look to central Government to fund any major infrastructure.