Ambitious plans to build a dual carriageway from Moulton to Sywell have been announced by Northamptonshire County Council.
In January this year, the Chronicle & Echo revealed the council was planning to build a bypass around Moulton to ease congestion on the A43 between Northampton and Kettering.
But during a meeting of the authority’s cabinet this week, Councillor Andre Gonzalez de Savage (Con, East Hunsbury & Shelfleys) revealed he now hoped to expand the new bypass further so it would continue through fields alongside the current A43 to Sywell.
He said: “I think it makes sense. We’ll have to look at the cost, but I think it would work.”
At the moment, the A43 between Kettering and Moulton has no dual carriageway sections and is regularly blocked with rush-hour traffic.
In June, the county council said work on the Moulton section of the new road should start in April 2015 and cost just over £22 million.
It is believed part of the funding for the Moulton stretch would come from Barratt Homes, who want to build up to 2,000 houses on land close to the A43.
Councillor Gonzalez de Savage said the full cost of extending the dual carriageway to Sywell had not yet been worked out, but it was thought to be about £18 million.
He said: “We all know the traffic on that road is terrible, so we have a start date for the work at Moulton and ideally, I’d like to start the Sywell scheme at the same time.
“The figure we’re looking at is about £18 million, but I would like to think we could save some money out of that because having a stretch of dual carriageway from Moulton up to Sywell would be a huge benefit to the whole county.”
Other road-building schemes which were backed by the council this week included the long-awaited Flore bypass.
The county council will now apply to the Department for Transport for money to help fund the roads schemes.