BUSINESSES along the A19 York to Selby road have breathed a sigh of relief with the completion of lengthy road works.

Shops, garages, pubs and restaurants were all hit in the wallet as motorists tried to avoid potential delays by taking other routes.

This led to a drop in the amount of passing trade and so hit takings.

But the road is now clear, and businesses want to remind customers they are open as usual and there are no traffic queues.

Richard Milnes, landlord of the White Swan, at Deighton, said it had been a difficult four months, but particularly so recently as the road works were right outside the pub.

He said: “For the last five or six weeks it’s been dreadful. Trade has been chronic. Outside the pub it has looked like Beirut.

“There have been huge ditches, heavy machinery and the road has been closed at 9pm for re-surfacing so all my customers have been leaving.”

Mr Milnes, who has owned the pub for the past eight years, said it had been the worst summer he and his wife Liz had experienced, with trade down by a third.

He said traffic lights had kept vehicles moving but there were still queues of up to 20 minutes which customers at lunchtime, just wanting a pint and a sandwich, did not want to sit in.

Klem Pavlou, who has run the Big Chef Café at Crockey Hill for the past ten years, agreed that trade had been bad.

He said: “It’s been a lot quieter, people have avoided coming down here as the queues have been too big.”

The road works took four months to complete, overrunning slightly, and were to allow a new drainage system to be fitted, resurfacing work to be carried out and for road safety improvements to be made at Deighton.