IT is dangerous and a "health problem" for which "prevention is clearly better than cure".

So says Dr Jeffrie Strang, public health director for the Ryedale, Scarborough and Whitby area.

And what is it he is talking about? Passive smoking? Obesity? Lack of exercise?

No - the A64.

What a pity Dr Strang's outspoken views, delivered to a meeting of councillors in Malton, weren't made public a couple of weeks ago.

It was then that the Regional Transport Board took the decision to drop dualling of the A64 from its priority lists - a decision that means North Yorkshire must now wait until at least 2016 before it can again request a half-decent road linking York to the coast.

Dr Strang is right in so many ways; the A64 is a health problem. It is a health problem because of the number of serious accidents that happen there. It is a health problem because of the never-ending tailbacks, sometimes stretching miles, which pump

pollution into the air and drive motorists' stress levels through the roof. It is a health problem even in the economic sense - strangling the economies of Scarborough, Whitby and Ryedale, and doing nothing to boost that of York itself.

The need to upgrade the road is all the more desperate because there is not, across large parts of rural North Yorkshire, a decent public transport system - nothing, for example, to compare with the subsidised transport networks of West or South Yorkshire.

The case for upgrading the A64 is simply overwhelming. Two weeks ago, we called on the Regional Transport Board to reverse its astonishing decision. Today, in the light of Dr Strang's comments, we do so again.

It is time to do what should have been done years ago; to build a decent road to the coast. Our health depends on it.

Updated: 09:52 Thursday, April 27, 2006