Transport Secretary Chris Grayling is assessing whether a bypass could be built in north Cumbria.

He has visited Warwick Bridge to assess the potential for a new road to take traffic away from the village, as plans for dualling the A69 are pursued.

Mr Grayling joined Carlisle's MP John Stevenson at Warwick Bridge for a tour of the A69 and A689 on a visit to Cumbria that included an announcement of £2.6m-worth of improvements to the A595.

Mr Grayling said: "I wanted to come and take a look for myself so I understand the problems.

"You can never appreciate something properly until you come and see it and so what I wanted to do was come and look at this.

"I am very focused for the next investment period in ensuring we do a lot of trans-Pennine links and this area is clearly one of the strong candidates.

"Quite clearly it's very difficult here because there's not a lot you can do with that bridge. So therefore I'm looking forward to seeing what John's proposed alternative is."

Mr Grayling was visiting Cumbria to announce £2.6m would be spent on roundabouts on the A595 and A66 to cut congestion between Cockermouth and Workington.

The funding is part of a national scheme under which the Department of Transport is spending £220m to cut congestion, improve safety and roads.

Of the national funding, £27.4 million will go to the North West, with £21 million set aside for 'small schemes'.

Although no improvements to the A69 between Carlisle and Hexham, the A689 and by-pass at Warwick Bridge are scheduled between now and 2020, Mr Grayling said they were on his radar.

He said: "We're already planning the next round of upgrades so actually it's important to get these things on the agenda and the more I understand the needs around the country, the easier it is to say to Highways England, 'Look this needs to be one of the things you put on your priority list', and I absolutely get the need for this to happen."

Mr Stevenson also said it was important to build momentum around roads improvement. He believes benefits would include better safety and communications between the north of England.

He said: "I just think the benefits are numerous and to get that investment in would be terrific for the area and it's terrific that the secretary of state has actually come up to actually have a look for himself and see what potential benefits there are to Carlisle and the North East."

For more than a decade campaigners have argued a by-pass should be installed around Warwick Bridge and the A69 should be dualled between Carlisle and Hexham. One of the prime concerns is safety as crashes happen regularly.

Mr Grayling said: "The challenge with a road like the A69 is you're going through some very sensitive countryside and so in many parts ultimately duelling may well be the right option.

"I suspect it's difficult to do it everywhere, so what you have to do is to make sure that you've got enough space capacity, overtaking capacity so you don't create something where people crawl along for mile after mile after mile."

Nick Marriner, Cumbria County councillor for Wetheral and owner of Warwick Hall on the outskirts of the village, has long campaigned for a by-pass and was encouraged by Mr Grayling's visit - though he said he was the third transport minister to visit.

Mr Grayling said of the by-pass: "I absolutely understand the need for improvement and it's got to be sensitively done because this is a lovely valley, the river is very beautiful so it's got to be done in a way that's sensitive to the surrounding area but given the ambitions for growth in Carlisle."

Both Mr Grayling and Mr Stevenson stressed how importance improvements to the A69 would be to growth in the North.

"What you have here is the potential for a Carlisle-Newcastle access that provides a degree of strong growth right at the top of England. I think that's the importance of the A69 and the easier it is to get between the two cities, the more the potential is to unlock that access of growth in the very north," said Mr Grayling.