The A66 is a major road in

Northern England Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North Country, or simply the North, is the northern area of England. It broadly corresponds to the former borders of Angle Northumbria, the Anglo-Scandinavian Kingdom of Jorvik, and the ...

, which in part follows the course of the Roman road from

Scotch Corner Scotch Corner is a junction of the A1(M) and A66 trunk roads near Richmond in North Yorkshire, England. It has been described as "the modern gateway to Cumbria, the North East and Scotland", and is a primary destination signed from as far a ...

to Penrith. It runs from east of

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area. Until the early 1800s, the a ...

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by National parks of the United Kingdom, national parks, including most of ...

Workington Workington is a coastal town and civil parish at the mouth of the River Derwent on the west coast in the Allerdale borough of Cumbria, England. The town was historically in Cumberland. At the 2011 census it had a population of 25,207. Locat ...

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. C ...

Route

From its eastern terminus between Redcar and Middlesbrough it runs past Stockton-on-Tees and Darlington mainly as two-lane

dual-carriageway A dual carriageway ( BE) or divided highway ( AE) is a class of highway with carriageways for traffic travelling in opposite directions separated by a central reservation (BrE) or median (AmE). Roads with two or more carriageways which are ...

and single carriageway past Darlington, becoming motorway standard as the A66(M) shortly before meeting junction 57 of the

A1(M) A1(M) is the designation given to a series of four separate motorway sections in England. Each section is an upgrade to a section of the A1, a major north–south road which connects London, the capital of England, with Edinburgh, the capit ...

. It shares the A1(M) route south to

, from where it continues west across the Pennines, past Brough, Appleby,

Kirkby Thore Kirkby Thore is a small village and civil parish in Cumbria, England (), in the historic county of Westmorland. It is close to the Lake District national park and the Cumbrian Pennines. It includes the areas of Bridge End, in the southwest by t ...

, Temple Sowerby and Penrith until it reaches Junction 40 of the

M6 motorway The M6 motorway is the longest motorway in the United Kingdom. It is located entirely within England, running for just over from the Midlands to the border with Scotland. It begins at Junction 19 of the M1 and the western end of the A14 at ...

at Skirsgill Interchange, where traffic going towards Western Scotland turns onto the northbound M6. The A66 continues past

Blencathra Blencathra, also known as Saddleback, is one of the most northerly hills in the English Lake District. It has six separate fell tops, of which the highest is the Hallsfell Top at 2,848 feet (868 metres). Name For many years, Ordnance Sur ...

to Keswick and

Cockermouth Cockermouth is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Allerdale in Cumbria, England, so named because it is at the confluence of the River Cocker as it flows into the River Derwent. The mid-2010 census estimates state that Cocke ...

and on through the northern reaches of the Lake District before arriving at the coastal town of

. There is a short stretch of dual carriageway along the northern part of Bassenthwaite Lake between Keswick and Cockermouth. Whilst the eastbound section follows the straight line of the disused Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway, the westbound section has numerous bends with climbs and dips. The westbound section was closed due to flood damage in December 2015 and when it re-opened in May 2016 had been permanently reduced to a single lane. This section has a limit monitored by average speed cameras.

History

When road numbers were first designated in the 1920s, the A66 was assigned to the route between Penrith and Hull via Scotch Corner and

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

, mainly along former Roman roads. Today's route largely follows the original route between Penrith and Scotch Corner. The historic route between Scotch Corner and Hull follows what is now today's A1, A168, B6265, A59 and A1079. It is anomalously numbered since west of Penrith it trespasses into numbering zone 5; this is because it originally terminated at the A6 in Penrith but was extended further west in order to create one continuous east–west route. Most of what is now the A66 west of Penrith was originally A594 – only a small stub of this road numbering remains, from

Maryport Maryport is a town and civil parish in the Allerdale borough of Cumbria, England, historically in Cumberland. The town is situated just outside the Lake District National Park, at the northern end of the former Cumberland Coalfield. Location ...

Proposed developments

Trans-Pennine dualling

The middle section of the A66 between

on the A1(M) and Penrith on the M6 forms one of the key trans-Pennines trunk routes and has one of the worst road-safety records in the UK. Various bypasses and upgrades have been constructed since the early 1970s, giving the current mix of single and dual-carriageway sections. In 2002, after many years of local campaigning, the Transport Minister,

John Spellar John Francis Spellar (born 5 August 1947) is a British politician who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Warley, formerly Warley West, since 1992. A member of the Labour Party, he previously represented Birmingham Northfield from 1 ...

, gave support for the upgrading of the remaining single-carriageway sections by the

Highways Agency National Highways, formerly the Highways Agency and later Highways England, is a State-owned enterprise, government-owned company charged with operating, maintaining and improving Roads in England, motorways and major A roads in England. It al ...

. The first three projects began construction in early 2006 and opened in 2007 and 2008. The whole route between the A1(M) and M6 was due to be dualled by 2011, by which time the upgrade of the A1 to motorway status at Scotch Corner was planned to be complete. After the construction of several sections commenced, it was announced that those schemes currently in the planning phase would not go ahead until 2016 at the earliest. The Highways Agency website states "Other than those already committed, the Regions did not identify any other major schemes for the A66 as high priorities to receive funding. This means that there is currently no likelihood of any additional major schemes on this route being funded within the next ten-year period. However the Regional Funding Allocation process will be reviewed in due course and this will give an opportunity for the Regions to revise their priorities." In September 2015, the government said that £500,000 would be invested into the study of the two Trans-Pennine routes of the A66 and the A69. The proposal would be for one or even both roads to be dualled wholly between the A1/A1(M) and the M6. The following year the government announced that the A66 would be dualled, but not the A69. In March 2019, project director Matt Townsend from Highways England announced plans for a public consultation from May 2019, in which it would present its plans for a £500 million spend to complete dualling the Trans-Pennine section, together with improvements at the M6 and A1(M) interchanges. Additionally, a plan to create a second crossing of the River Tees near for traffic on the congested

A19 road The A19 is a major road in England running approximately parallel to and east of the A1 road. Although the two roads meet at the northern end of the A19, the two roads originally met at the southern end of the A19 in Doncaster, but the old r ...

, would see the widening of the A66 between Teesside Park and the Tees Viaduct interchange.

Safety

The section of road between Scotch Corner and Penrith accounted for 70 deaths over ten years up until 2002, which was above the national average for single lane carriageways. Whilst the number of accidents was in line with the national average, the number of serious injuries and deaths was twice the national average; this high attrition rate was the reason for the go-ahead for the new dualled sections on the grounds of safety. Snow gates were installed on the road between

Bowes Bowes is a village in County Durham, England. Located in the Pennine hills, it is situated close to Barnard Castle. It is built around the medieval Bowes Castle. Geography and administration Civic history Bowes lies within the historic coun ...

and Brough. This section is the moorland route over

Stainmore Stainmore is a remote geographic area in the Pennines on the border of Cumbria, County Durham and North Yorkshire. The name is used for a civil parish in the Eden District of Cumbria, England, including the villages of North Stainmore and South ...

summit which reaches a height of 1450 feet (441 metres) is prone to heavy snow in the winter. Both sets of gates have turnaround facilities to allow all traffic to change direction.

Accidents and incidents

* On Monday 24 May 2010 three people were killed, four were seriously injured and approximately thirty people sustained less severe injuries after a car collided with a coach carrying children home from Keswick School on the

A66 road The A66 is a major road in Northern England, which in part follows the course of the Roman road from Scotch Corner to Penrith. It runs from east of Middlesbrough in North Yorkshire to Workington in Cumbria. Route From its easter ...

Gallery

File:A6611 Sculpture.JPG, This sculpture on the roundabout near the start of the A66 east of

represents steel being poured image:A66mids.JPG, A66 elevated section in Middlesbrough with the Transporter Bridge in the background File:A6610 Road.JPG, A66 in Stockton-on-Tees, looking east File:Darlington, "Train" sculpture and A66 - geograph.org.uk - 796999.jpg, East of Darlington, the A66 passes the ''

Brick Train The ''Brick Train'' is a brick sculpture located on the outskirts of the town of Darlington, in the English county of Durham. The sculpture was created by David Mach in 1997 to celebrate the town's railway heritage, and is modelled on the steam ...

'' sculpture image:Scotch99.JPG, A66 just west of

junction with the

, looking east image:Scotch98.JPG, A66 just west of Scotch Corner junction with the A1(M), Scotch Corner Hotel in background image:A66bassenthwaite2.JPG, A66 at

Bassenthwaite Lake Bassenthwaite Lake is one of the largest water bodies in the English Lake District. It is long and narrow, approximately long and wide, but is also extremely shallow, with a maximum depth of about . It is the only body of water in the Lake ...

, looking west image:A66basenthwaite1.JPG, A66 at Bassenthwaite Lake in Cumbria, looking east Image:A66 Trunk Road England.jpg, Eastbound view from Stainmore Cafe car park image:Milestone kirkby thore.JPG, Roman milestone on the former A66 route between Kirkby Thore and Temple Sowerby

A66(M)

The A66(M) is a

spur A spur is a metal tool designed to be worn in pairs on the heels of riding boots for the purpose of directing a horse or other animal to move forward or laterally while riding. It is usually used to refine the riding aids (commands) and to ba ...

from the

at Junction 57. It was opened in 1965 along with the A1(M) as part of the ''Darlington by-pass motorway''. It can be accessed only by northbound traffic on the A1(M) and has an exit to this route southbound only.

Junctions

References

External links

Heritage and History

CBRD Motorway Database – A66(M)

Pathetic Motorways – A66(M)

SABRE article on the A66

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20070928014618/http://www.road-to-nowhere.co.uk/route-guides/A66/ Road to Nowhere: A66 {{DEFAULTSORT:6-0066 Motorways in England Roads in Cumbria Roads in Yorkshire Transport in County Durham Transport in North Yorkshire