For years residents and visitors to Fleetwood have been raising their daily struggles on the main highway (A585) in and out of the town, which as a single lane road is regularly backed up with traffic – I’ve been caught in this myself countless times!

Along with fiercely campaigning to reopen the line to a Fleetwood railway station, I’m pleased to see any efforts to improve long-term access to the town through transport infrastructure upgrades.

National Highways are working to reduce some of these traffic pressures with the Windy Harbour to Skippool Bypass Improvement Scheme, creating a dual carriageway between the Windy harbour traffic lights and Skippool roundabout (which would become a larger junction).

I was delighted to visit the site recently, don the necessary safety and high vis gear, and see how the development was coming along.

Not only was it fantastic to see the progress of the road, but to hear about some of the community and school engagement, biodiversity drives through woodland creation, and archaeological finds – including arrowheads, tools, pottery, and a 6,000 year old elm tree leaf!

Naturally, the necessary disruption whilst the road is being built will be a source of frustration for residents and regular commuters. I absolutely understand this, and where issues arise (such as traffic timing, cone and temporary lane placements etc), I am happy to press National Highways on them to ease the worry during development.

However, there’s good progress so far, and once completed I hope that this road improvement scheme will have massive benefits for the area and commuters.