Gateshead’s doomed flyover has been commemorated in cake form, as council bosses have been urged to crack on with its promised demolition after 12 months of closure. Liberal Democrat opposition councillors unveiled a sponge substitute for the crumbling A167 highway on Friday afternoon to mark a year since it was shut down over serious safety concerns.

As he cut into the icing-clad replica, Lib Dem leader Ron Beadle urged the Labour-run council to “get on” with the job of tearing it down. Council leader Martin Gannon had suggested previously that the flyover would be gone by the end of the year, though local authority officials indicated at the time that a likelier timescale would be 12 months from those comments he made in March.

Councillor Ron Beadle and other representative from the

See Full Page