The Department for Transport has begun a 12-week consultation process to identify and upgrade vital A-roads as it creates a new Major Road Network across England.

The Major Road Network includes 5,000 miles of A-roads.

Upgrades including bypasses, bridging missing links, widening roads, improving junctions and implementing new technology will be managed by councils and sub-national transport bodies, who will receive up to £100m in funding, raised through Vehicle Excise Duty.

The proposed network includes 5,000 miles of A roads, with work aimed at mirroring planned changes to the Strategic Road Network. It’s hoped that this will cut congestion, enable new housing to be built and improve safety for commuters.

Transport secretary, Chris Grayling, said: “For decades, these major local roads have been underfunded and not properly maintained. We are spending record amounts on improving our roads and we want more of our busiest roads to benefit from guaranteed investment.

“This will unlock no end of benefits for communities by improving motorists’ journeys, taking traffic away from built up areas, as well as enabling new housing to be built and creating jobs.”

The consultation runs until 19 March, and submissions can be made here.