Proposals form Highways England to overhaul the dual carriageway linking the A1 to the A428 have been formally accepted by the Planning Inspectorate. The plans will see the creation of a new 10-mile section of carriageway from the Black Cat roundabout in Bedfordshire to the A428 Caxton Gibbet roundabout in Cambridgeshire.

Both existing roundabouts will be upgraded into modern, free-flowing junctions and a new junction added at Cambridge Road, improving access to St Neots and its train station.

The project replaces the only remaining section of single carriageway between Milton Keynes and Cambridge and tackles one of the region’s most notorious congestion hotspots.

Wyboston Ward Councillor Tom Wootton commented: “In villages surrounding the Black Cat roundabout we have been waiting for this for decades. We’ve been promised this on multiple occasions and nothing has yet to come to fruition. I’ve sat in so many meetings where things have been promised and haven’t arrived. I am genuinely hopeful that this much needed work will finally happen for all the residents of Bedford.”