Highway to swell

A19 overtakes its rivalsin anal poll to find the best road in UK’

- JEREMY ARMSTRONG

THE route taking drivers on a whistle-stop tour past Thirsk, Northallerton and Teesside may not give Route 66 a run for its money.

But the understated A19 has been named Britain's best road.

Drivers got their kicks from Doncaster in South Yorkshire to Seaton Burn, six miles north of Newcastle, as the route claimed top spot in wideranging research by independent watchdog Transport Focus.

In its Strategic Road Users Survey, 9,000 regular travellers were asked to rank the road network managed by National Highways, which carried 95.8 billion vehicle miles of traffic in 2023, up 2.3% on 2022.