MORE than £17m is to spent improving the region’s roads before Christmas.

About £7m of that will go on resurfacing the A1 north of Newcastle.

A further £4.5m will be spent resurfacing parts of the A1(M) between junctions 58 (Burtree interchange) near Darlington and 63 (Blind Lane interchange) near Chester-le-Street.

The A19, A184 and A194M will get £1.2m-worth of works and £3m will be spent resurfacing the A66.

Lights on the A66 will also be upgraded, at a cost of £800,000.

Vanessa Gilbert, the Highways Agency North East regional director, said: “This is really good news for road users across the North-East because it will ultimately mean more reliable journey times and improved safety.

“Record amounts are being invested in roads – that inevitably means more roadworks, but for every scheme we work on there will be an improvement for drivers.”

Ms Gilbert said roadworks were planned very carefully to cause as little disruption as possible but asked for drivers’ co-operation during the works.

Additionally, £20.2m is being spent improving four “pinch points” – at the A19/A689 Wolviston interchange near Wynyard, A19/A174 Parkway interchange on Teesside, A1/A19 Seaton Burn interchange in Northumberland and A19/A1231 Hylton Grange interchange in Sunderland.

A £61m upgrade of the A1 on Tyneside began this summer and a £380m upgrade of the A1 in North Yorkshire is also ongoing.

For further details, visit highways.gov.uk/roads