A campaign group has lost a bid to bring a High Court legal challenge over the Government’s approval of a plan to dual the A66.

Transport Action Network (Tan) asked the court for the green light to challenge the then-transport secretary’s decision from March this year to grant a development consent order allowing the dualling of an 18-mile stretch of the A66.

The group claims the project – which it says will cost £1.5 billion – will increase carbon emissions by 2.7 million tonnes.

A66 where it changes to single laneA66 where it changes to single lane (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT) The Department for Transport and National Highways both opposed the legal action at a hearing on Wednesday, and Mr Justice Mould dismissed the case on Friday.

In a ruling, the judge said the bid “does not raise an arguable basis” to claim the Secretary of State was wrong to grant the order.

He said: “The Secretary of State plainly took into account the need for the development in terms of national considerations and he also took account of the prospects and opportunities of carrying out the development elsewhere.”

The development consent order encompasses several schemes to dual around 30km of single-carriageway sections of the A66 between junction 40 of the M6 motorway at Penrith, Cumbria, and junction 53 of the A1(M) at Scotch Corner in North Yorkshire.

On its website, Tan said the road runs through the North Pennines National Landscape, previously known as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and the scheme would reduce “tranquillity”.

It also said air pollution would harm blanket bog, an endangered habitat, and more than 18,200 trees would be felled.

But Mr Justice Mould said the transport secretary in the previous Conservative government, Mark Harper, “found a compelling need for the development to take place” and “considered whether there were any alternatives which might serve to achieve that compelling need”.