A66 Northern Trans-Pennine 2026 amendment explained

If you opened the text on legislation.gov.uk and felt as if you had walked into the middle of a filing cabinet, you are not alone. The A66 Northern Trans-Pennine Development Consent (Amendment) Order 2026 was made on 15 April 2026 and came into force on 16 April 2026. It was signed on behalf of the Secretary of State for Transport by Natasha Kopala at the Department for Transport. The main point is simpler than the drafting makes it seem. This order amends the earlier A66 Northern Trans-Pennine Development Consent Order 2024 rather than starting the whole road scheme again. In other words, the Government is changing parts of the legal permission and the approved plans, not asking the country to decide all over again whether the A66 project should exist.

To make sense of this, it helps to know what a Development Consent Order, or DCO, actually is. Under the Planning Act 2008, major infrastructure schemes such as big roads need a DCO because it works as planning permission plus a package of related legal powers. A statutory instrument is a form of secondary legislation, meaning it is the formal legal tool used to set or amend detailed rules under powers Parliament has already granted. **What this means:** when the order talks about a 'non-material change', it is using a route for alterations judged small enough not to reopen the whole consent from scratch. The source text says the Secretary of State considered the application and the responses to publicity and consultation carried out under the 2011 regulations before deciding to make this amendment.

So what has actually changed? One clear example is the insertion of a new authorised work, Work No. 0102-1D-A, for the stretch between M6 Junction 40 and Kemplay Bank. The order says this covers extra carriageway works east of the new Kemplay Bank Junction and new private access to an attenuation pond. Other changes are the kind that planners, engineers and landowners care about even if the rest of us might skim past them. In Schedule 1, some descriptions are corrected or renamed, including replacing 'footpath' with 'cycle track' in one place and changing a location reference from Countess Pillar to the former Llama Karma Kafe. These are not cosmetic edits. They are there so the legal wording matches the plans that are meant to be built.

Much of the order is really about rights of way and access. The amended tables in Schedule 2 change route lengths, remove some entries altogether, rename some paths and redraw some private means of access across Scheme 03, from Penrith to Temple Sowerby, and Scheme 0405, from Temple Sowerby to Appleby. If you live, farm or travel near these sections, those tiny changes in metres can matter. A line that moves from 71 metres to 10 metres, or a route that stops being labelled a footpath and becomes a cycle track, can alter exactly what is authorised, who may use it and where replacement access is meant to go.

The Temple Sowerby to Appleby section gets the heaviest editing. Priest Lane, Cross Street, Long Marton, Green Land Track, Footpath 336/017 and several private access references are all adjusted. In some places the order shortens distances. In others it deletes old wording and replaces it with new access descriptions, including revised arrangements around Ashton Lea field and new links carried over a bridge. This is the part of infrastructure law that often catches readers off guard. Big schemes are not just about one road cutting across a map. They are also about farm tracks, underpasses, maintenance strips, side roads, bridges, bridleways and the practical question of how people and vehicles still get from one place to another after the main works are built.

The order also changes smaller but still official details in Schedules 7 and 8. That includes revised measurements for road classifications and for speed limit plans, including figures linked to Cross Street and the realigned Long Marton road. Article 3 then requires the undertaker, meaning the body carrying out the authorised works, to send in any new, revised or substituted plans so the Secretary of State can certify them as true copies. That certification point is more important than it sounds. Once a plan is certified, the order says it can be used as evidence in proceedings. In plain English, the approved drawing is not just a helpful diagram. It becomes part of the legal record of what has been authorised.

If you are wondering whether this means the whole A66 Northern Trans-Pennine project has been reapproved or redesigned, the short answer is no. The explanatory note says this order amends the 2024 DCO by making non-material changes, and it also notes that the 2024 order had already been corrected by a 2025 statutory instrument. So what you are seeing here is another round of refinement rather than a fresh yes-or-no decision on the entire scheme. **What this means for you:** the quickest route through a document like this is often the note at the end, because it tells you which schedules are being changed and why. You do not need to read every drawing number first. Start with the note, then look for the scheme section that affects your road, path or property.

There is also a transparency point worth keeping in view. The order says copies of the substituted plans can be inspected free of charge during working hours at National Highways, Three Snowhill, Snow Hill Queensway, Birmingham, B4 4GA. That matters because planning law is only useful to the public if people can actually see the drawings the legal text is talking about. So the real lesson in this April 2026 order is a simple one. Major infrastructure planning does not end when the first consent is granted. It carries on through corrections, amendments and updated plans, and those apparently small legal changes can shape how local roads, paths and access work in everyday life.