Statutory Instrument 2026/422, made on 15 April 2026 and in force from 16 April 2026, amends the A66 Northern Trans-Pennine Development Consent Order 2024. According to the Order published on legislation.gov.uk, the amendment follows an application under paragraph 2 of Schedule 6 to the Planning Act 2008 and the Infrastructure Planning (Changes to, and Revocation of, Development Consent Orders) Regulations 2011 for a non-material change. The Secretary of State states that the application was considered alongside responses to publicity and consultation carried out under regulations 6 and 7 of the 2011 Regulations. In procedural terms, that confirms the change was handled through the post-consent route for limited amendments, rather than through a fresh application for development consent.
The first substantive change appears in the schedule of authorised development. Article 4 inserts a new Work No. 0102-1D-A for Scheme 0102, covering additional carriageway works and improvements to existing sections of the A66 east of the new Kemplay Bank Junction, together with new private means of access to an attenuation pond. The same article also adjusts existing work descriptions. In Scheme 03, one route description is changed from footpath to cycle track, and a location reference is updated from Countess Pillar to the former Llama Karma Kafe. In Scheme 0405, one sub-paragraph is removed and an existing reference to Footpath 336/011 is replaced with Green Land Track. Read together, those amendments are directed at keeping the legal drafting aligned with the design drawings and the route status intended on the ground.
Much of the Order is devoted to Schedule 2, which governs permanent stopping up and replacement highways or private means of access. For Scheme 03 between Penrith and Temple Sowerby, the Order revises several route descriptions, shortens or amends recorded lengths and removes one access reference entirely. It also recasts some replacement provision so that what had previously been described as a footpath is instead recorded as cycle track infrastructure. These are technical edits, but they carry legal weight. In a development consent order, the wording in the schedules controls what may be stopped up, what must be provided in its place and how those new routes are characterised. A change from footpath to cycle track is therefore more than a drafting correction; it affects the type of lawful use and the way the replacement route sits within the consent.
The more extensive amendments fall within Scheme 0405, covering Temple Sowerby to Appleby. Here the Order rewrites a large number of entries in the rights of way and access tables, including Priest Lane, Cross Street, Bridleway 336/018, Footpath 336/017, Long Marton and a series of private access references. Many of the revisions alter distances, start points, directions of travel and connection points. Several entries are removed altogether, while others are rewritten so that access crosses the new A66 by bridge and connects with newly defined private means of access. The explanatory note states that articles 7 to 13 are all directed to Schedule 2 changes for Scheme 0405. For landowners, occupiers and local highway users, the practical effect is that the legally certified access pattern is being reset to match the revised drawings. That is especially relevant where maintenance strips, field access, underpasses and route tie-ins depend on exact reference points rather than broad descriptions.
The Order also amends the schedules dealing with road classification and traffic regulation. In Schedule 7, several highway measurements are corrected, including a change from 1.2 kilometres to 1.15 kilometres in the Scheme 0405 classification provisions and further revisions to recorded lengths for other highway sections. In Schedule 8, the speed limit plans are updated for the new realigned Cross Street and Realigned Long Marton, again by changing the lengths attached to the approved traffic regulation measures. These revisions are limited when set against the scale of the whole A66 project, but they perform an important legal function. Traffic regulation and highway classification schedules need to match the final plan set with precision. If the measurements in the Order and the measurements on the drawings diverge, enforcement, delivery and later maintenance become harder to administer.
Article 3 requires the undertaker, as soon as practicable after the making of the Order, to submit any new, revised or substituted plans to the Secretary of State for certification. The Order also states that a plan certified by the Secretary of State is admissible in proceedings as evidence of the contents of the document it reproduces. Article 16 then replaces the Schedule 10 table so that the certified document list reflects the updated drawing issue. The substituted material spans a wide part of the project record. According to the Schedule, revised drawings are required across de-trunking plans, engineering section drawings, plan and profile drawings, rights of way and access plans, traffic regulation measures plans, speed limit plans and works plans for Schemes 0102, 03 and 0405. For delivery teams and affected parties, the certified plan register becomes the operative legal reference set, not the superseded versions.
The explanatory note confirms that the 2026 instrument amends the 2024 A66 Northern Trans-Pennine Development Consent Order, which had already been corrected by S.I. 2025/1084. It also records that the substituted plans may be inspected free of charge during working hours at National Highways' office at Three Snowhill, Snow Hill Queensway, Birmingham. That inspection right matters because the legal effect of many of these changes can only be fully understood by reading the revised schedules alongside the substituted sheets. Overall, the amendment does not reopen the case for the A66 scheme. It regularises a series of detailed post-consent changes through the non-material change procedure under the Planning Act 2008. For planning professionals, affected land interests and local campaigners, the key point is clear: from 16 April 2026, the operative consent is the 2024 Order as amended by this instrument and interpreted through the newly certified plans.