THE Tyne Valley is already benefiting from a £7.73m to improve roads across Northumberland.

Major resurfacing works on the C239 Oakwood to Beaufront road and surrounding roads will be carried out in its entirety after Northumberland was allocated a total of £7.73m from the Department of Transport’s £420m national budget.

Work on a small section of the road was originally planned to run between November 19 and December 7, with work on neighbouring sections planned in phases over the coming years.

The work to resurface the entire stretch of road in one go is now well under way. The work will stop on December 21 for the Christmas break, and will recommence in the new year.

Nick Oliver, Northumberland County Councillor for Corbridge, which includes the parishes of both Oakwood and Beaufront, was delighted the work had been extended.

He said: “On the back of the £7.73m funding, the road improvements will be extended significantly and we can do it all in one go.

“The extra funding was only announced last month, and I thought it was pretty quick to start seeing the money spent locally.

“In such a short space of time, the council is moving quickly to expand this work and it’s good for the residents in the area, especially those in Hexham and Corbridge.”

The extended resurfacing work was confirmed at the cabinet meeting of Northumberland County Council on Tuesday when members formally approved the £7.73m government funding to improve the state of the county roads.

Glen Sanderson, cabinet member for environment and local services, said: “We’ve been investing heavily in road improvements this year, not just in tackling potholes, but also undertaking substantial longer lasting repairs to tackle the wider and underlying damager that has been caused to our highway network. This extra funding will allow us to continue our ongoing road improvements throughout the county.”