Bids invited for £25m Morpeth Northern Bypass

Northumberland County Council has invited contractors to start pretendering for the Morpeth Northern Bypass road scheme.


The 3.8km road scheme will link the A1 to the A197 in South East Northumberland, reduce traffic levels in Morpeth town centre and open up opportunities for development at key sites.

The Council has recently conducted a review of key risks along with an assessment of how best to achieve cost certainty and decided detailed design and construction will be delivered through Early Contractor Involvement.

The new transport link is expected to boost the economy across South East Northumberland and the North East as a whole by improving connections for business to major transport routes.

Construction work on the bypass is expected to begin in Autumn 2014, with completion by summer 2016.

The Department for Transport is to provide £21m of funding towards building the bypass – officially named the South East Northumberland Strategic Link Road.  Northumberland County Council will provide the remainder of the funding.