Frustration is mounting over delays and uncertainty surrounding the opening of a £12m congestion-busting bridge and town centre bypass, more than five years after work to build it began.

Northallerton councillors said they were disappointed but not surprised after a meeting of Hambleton District Council’s planning committee this week heard a senior officer explain fresh “snagging issues” were holding up the opening of the North Northallerton bridge linking Stokesley Road with Darlington Road.

The update follows several setbacks for the scheme, which is designed to reduce tailbacks through the town largely caused by raiway level crossings, following it gaining planning approval in 2015.

In response to a barrage of objections to plans to build the North Northallerton estate in the area Hambleton councillors pledged work would begin on the scheme in the spring of 2016.

Residents expectations were raised after a sign was erected stating it would open in spring 2019, the first of several proposed opening dates that have not been met.

One delay this year has been put down to the incorrect membrane being laid by contractors before the tarmac, which then had to be removed and relaid.

A report to a meeting of North Yorkshire County Council’s transport scrutiny committee on Monday (July 11) said although the bridge and road surface had now been completed there are still items of outstanding work to complete, including creating two toucan crossings and necessary signage.

It states: “The county council is currently waiting for a programme of works with indicative dates from the developers. Once all the outstanding work is complete the road will be subject to a safety audit and any matters arising will be addressed before the road can be opened to traffic.”

Northallerton councillor Paul Atkin said although residents were regularly asking why the bridge had not opened, he was not confident it would see traffic in the near future due to the outstanding necessary tests and potential remedial work.

Another county town councillor Gerald Ramsden said accountability for the work had been blurred as contractors had been employed by housing developers to build the bridge as part of the housing estate.

He said while proposed openings for the link road had come and gone “some of the reasons were justifiable, but many were not”.

Coun Ramsden said opening the bridge and link road was a very pressing issue due to high volumes of traffic passing through Northallerton and two fatal accidents in the last year.

He said: “Anything that can reduce the amount of traffic passing through that bottleneck would increase the safety of the residents. It has been put back and put back already. It has taken so long up to now another delay doesn’t come as a surprise.”