Plans to build a £130m bypass to ease congestion on the north west's busiest A Road have been shelved by ministers.

The dual carriageway, the route of which was only unveiled in March and would have connnected the M56 at Bowdon and the M6 near Knutsford, had been described as ‘vital’ by campaigners. Two other major road schemes are also being mothballed. They are:

• Plans to let drivers use the hard-shoulder on part of the M60 and M62 in a separate scheme to ease traffic jams.
• And a new lane on the M60 at Worsley to cope with rush-hour traffic have been halted pending the review.

The projects have been put on hold by the coalition government pending its spending review in the autumn, the MEN has learned.

The proposed bypass is in the Tatton constituency of Chancellor George Osborne, who is spearheading the drive to slash billions in public spending.

The news comes a fortnight after the M.E.N revealed regional transport projects worth £560m had already been postponed pending the spending review.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Transport said: "Once the spending review is completed, the department will be in a position to identify those schemes that it can support, consistent with the government's objectives."

Engineers have been working on the bypass project in a bid to ease major jams on the A556, which has been named as Britain's most congested rush-hour route.

It is the only non-motorway section of the strategic road network linking north Cheshire and southern Greater Manchester with the West Midlands and the South.

Five people have died on the road and there have been 200 crashes in recent years.

The scheme would take traffic away from luxury homes in Mere and Bucklow Hill.

The government has also put on hold plans to let drivers use the hard-shoulder between J8 and J12 of the M60, near Carrington and Worsley, and J18 and J20 of the M62, near Simister and Rochdale, by 2015.

Also on hold is a Highways Agency plan to build a new lane on the anti-clockwise carriageway between J12 and J15 of the M60, near Worsley and Eccles.

The new lane and the hard-shoulder plan form part of a £6bn investment in the national road network.

Four construction firms have already been contracted to carry out the work, which includes resurfacing and new signs.

Scheme that have already been put on hold include: A £290m by-pass connecting the A6 near Stockport and the M56 at Manchester Airport; a £32m plan for 18 new park-and-ride sites across the region; a £30m inner-relief road for Wigan; and proposals worth £100m for a slimmed-down relief road to replace the scrapped Mottram-Tintwistle bypass.