The Department for Transport has brought into force the A66 Northern Trans-Pennine Development Consent (Amendment) Order 2026, made on 15 April 2026 and effective from 16 April 2026. According to the statutory instrument published on legislation.gov.uk, the Secretary of State approved the amendment after considering an application for a non-material change to the A66 Northern Trans-Pennine Development Consent Order 2024 and the responses received through the publicity and consultation process required by the 2011 Regulations. The new instrument does not replace the 2024 consent. It alters selected provisions within it. For policy and delivery teams, the point is procedural as well as physical: the Government has used the non-material change route under paragraph 2 of Schedule 6 to the Planning Act 2008, allowing the existing consent to stay in force while specific descriptions, plans, access arrangements and measurements are corrected or updated. The Order was signed for the Secretary of State by Natasha Kopala, Head of the Transport and Works Act Orders Unit.
The explanatory note states that the amendments are treated as non-material changes. In DCO practice, that places the Order within a narrower amendment process than a fresh consent application, while still requiring consultation under regulations 6 and 7 of the Infrastructure Planning (Changes to, and Revocation of, Development Consent Orders) Regulations 2011. That distinction matters because development consent orders are highly detailed legal instruments. Small changes in wording, route length, access status or drawing references can affect land interests, construction limits, rights of way and later enforcement. Even where the policy position on the A66 scheme is unchanged, the legal text must match the engineering and access plans that the project team and affected parties will use on the ground.
At project level, article 4 inserts a new authorised work, Work No. 0102-1D-A, within Scheme 0102 between M6 Junction 40 and Kemplay Bank. The added work covers additional carriageway construction and improvements to sections of the existing eastbound and westbound A66 to the east of the new Kemplay Bank Junction, together with new private means of access to an attenuation pond shown on the revised access plans. The same article makes a series of targeted description changes elsewhere in Schedule 1. Several references are amended from footpath to cycle track, one location description is changed from Countess Pillar to the site of the former Llama Karma Kafe, and one route reference in Scheme 0405 is changed from existing Footpath 336/011 to Green Land Track. Read together, these are drafting and alignment changes rather than a new transport policy decision.
Most of the instrument is devoted to Schedule 2, where the Order revises the tables dealing with permanent stopping up, new highways and private means of access. The explanatory note says that articles 5 and 6 amend the Scheme 03 provisions for Penrith to Temple Sowerby, while articles 7 to 13 amend the Scheme 0405 provisions for Temple Sowerby to Appleby. Across those provisions, route lengths, orientations, access descriptions and reference numbers are repeatedly adjusted, and a number of entries are removed altogether. Several of the practical changes affect how walkers, cyclists, landowners and maintenance vehicles will use the corridor. Some routes previously described as footpaths are redesignated as cycle tracks, some access lengths are shortened or redrawn, and some replacement private means of access are rewritten in full, including a bridge-linked arrangement around Point S connecting new accesses with the new footpath identified as Reference C. For anyone checking entitlement to use a specific track, verge or crossing point, the revised sheet references now carry legal weight.
The Order also corrects measurements in Schedule 7 on the classification of roads and in Schedule 8 on traffic regulation measures. These are limited amendments rather than a wholesale change to traffic policy. Examples in the instrument include the reduction of one Long Marton road length from 1.2 km to 1.15 km, revised dimensions for Cross Street, and further updated measurements within Scheme 0405. For National Highways, local highway authorities and scheme delivery teams, those changes serve a clear administrative purpose. Road classifications, stopping-up provisions and speed-limit entries need to match the physical extents shown on approved plans. Where a length, direction or junction point is recorded inaccurately, later enforcement, maintenance responsibility and commissioning decisions become harder to apply with confidence.
Article 3 creates the administrative step that follows the textual amendments. The undertaker must, as soon as practicable after the Order is made, submit any new, revised or substituted plans to the Secretary of State for certification. Once certified, those plans are admissible in proceedings as evidence of the contents of the documents they reproduce. In policy terms, that gives the amended project drawings formal evidential status alongside the revised Order text. Article 16 then replaces the Schedule 10 table of certified documents in full. The substituted list is extensive, covering de-trunking plans, engineering section drawings, plan and profile sheets, rights of way and access plans, traffic regulation measure plans and works plans across Scheme 0102, Scheme 03 and Scheme 0405, each tied to updated drawing numbers and revision codes. The instrument states that copies of the substituted plans may be inspected free of charge during working hours at National Highways' offices at Three Snowhill, Snow Hill Queensway, Birmingham.
In practical terms, the amendment is about legal accuracy, plan control and deliverability rather than a change to the strategic case for the A66 upgrade. The 2024 Order, which was later corrected by S.I. 2025/1084, remains the parent consent. The 2026 instrument tightens the wording around authorised works and brings the schedules into line with revised drawings and access arrangements. For affected landowners, rights of way users, local planning and highways officers, and project advisers, the immediate task is document comparison rather than policy reinterpretation. The operative position from 16 April 2026 is the 2024 DCO as amended by this Order, together with the substituted plans that the Secretary of State is to certify. That is the version that will govern scheme delivery, access rights and road-related provisions going forward.