IF the road system of York and North Yorkshire represents the veins and arteries of a hospital patient, then he or she should be in intensive care, warns Councillor BRIAN PERCIVAL, chairman of the region's inward investment organisation york-england.com, who also heads-up the economy board of Selby District Council. Here he analyses the problem that impedes business growth.

BOTH York and Harrogate, the twin economic drivers of the North Yorkshire economy, pump out the economic heart blood. But that heart is seeing a major thrombosis on several of its arteries.

The economic bloodlines are blocked around the York northern bypass, and

at every ventricle on the southern bypass.

The northern ring road has such a great blockage of its artery leading into the vortex at Clifton Moor, that only major surgery by way of dualling the roadways will cure it before there is paralysis of the limbs of the western area of the city.

Hopgrove roundabout is a car park at rush-hour and, with 10,000 jobs to be brought into the Monks Cross area of Huntington over the next three to eight years, then the thrombosis is life-threatening.

Good communications are at the heart of the growing economy of the sub-region. The thrust of york-england.com in attracting new businesses, and expanding existing companies, is cutting across local authority boundaries because that is the way business expands, but the road system provides as many obstacles as it does assistance.

In the sub-region of York and North Yorkshire, new business will be attracted along the transport corridors, particularly the M1/A1, the A64 and the A19.

york-england.com sees itself as a key driver for building links with northern Europe, capitalising on the E20 from Dublin to Warsaw, which includes our own M62.

Single carriageways along the A64 from York to Scarborough are preventing quality economic growth to the coastal region.

york-england.com has lured in a number of good companies, such as First Locate and Holden Distribution, which have helped to generate a total of 330 jobs and more than £20 million investment.

But these represent only 20 per cent of the growth capacity of the coastal area, which is why the dualling of the whole A64 is so important.

The A19 transport corridor is another key route, particularly as it will link the locally approved plans for a mighty £11 billion European Spallation Source, at Burn, south of Selby, with the University of York, a part of the White Rose Consortium. The A19, of course, will also link York and the new project with Teesside in the north.

It clearly needs to be dual carriageway, with a bypass for Escrick and a clearage of the blockage at Fulford that jams it from 7.45am every weekday.

The potential for huge growth for both exports and imports through the Humber ports is also suffering from severe blockages.

While the artery of the E20 is clear for long stretches through East Yorkshire, it comes to a grinding halt with the missing link of the M62 on to the Humber ports. Exporters and importers are suffering because there is no adequate rail link into Northern Europe, especially from the Humber.

Rail traffic out of Felixstowe is restricted. Then there is the problem of trans-shipments.

Continental railways use 9ft 6in high containers to cope with the growth, but UK bridge heights mean that rail can only accommodate 8ft 6in boxes. If there is not to be a high-speed rail link and transhipment facility at Hull, then the Goole ports must be developed.

The regional economic transport strategy recognises only ten per cent of all goods on the roads in Yorkshire are destined for outside the region, and the sub region's transport assets are under used.

But this will remain for as long the real threats of serial thrombosis are with us. It is time for the surgical skill of economists to perform bypass surgery to allow the otherwise robust economy of the area to perform to capacity.

Updated: 09:19 Thursday, December 22, 2005