KEY routes have been missed in government proposals for a new major road network (MRN), Cumbria County Council's (CCC) cabinet heard last week.

The Department for Transport's (DfT) proposed MRN would comprise of the most important local authority roads, with the prospect of more investment for the routes.

However, CCC's corporate director for economy and highways Dominic Donnini told cabinet there was concerns about 'key routes' such as the A595 and A591 being missed.

Leader of the council Stewart Young said that the advantage of the new network would be that there would be a new source of funding available.

"Which we will have to bid for," he said. "So it's a competitive process like all of the these things unfortunately but at least there is an opportunity to bid for some money.

"You just have to drive round our county after the winter we've had and are still experiencing and the damage that's' been done to our network and it is just unbelievable really that there's such a small amount allocated to the vast majority of the roads.

"There's 7500km of roads that we're responsible for in the county and to get what is clearly an inadequate amount of funding to maintain them is not very sensible in my view."

Councillor Peter Thornton added that the A6 between Kendal and the M6 and the A685 between Brough and Tebay were 'really important'.

"Because we've got more and more traffic on them," he said. "There's more and more accidents and when they have the accidents now the roads are closed not for a couple of hours like in the past but often up to 10 hours and the diversion routes are being used more often than ever before."

Cabinet approved the response to the DfT's consultation.