Northern Ireland's transport minister indicates that a timeframe may come 'within weeks' for Belfast's long-delayed York Street interchange motorway revamp

​He made the comments at the opening of the new York Street train station, which stands just a stone’s throw from where the York Street Interchange is meant to go.

This project involves a rewiring of the motorway system into the city from the north, and has been talked about since at least 2007, but has been beset by problems and has never materalised.

It involves a wholesale re-engineering of the M2 (running in and out of north Belfast), the M3 (the flyover connecting the M2 to east Belfast) and the Westlink (the motorway which joins up with the M2 and slices through the city, running west and south).

The interchange was dreamt up to solve the huge rush hour traffic jams which often form in the area.

Just a fortnight ago Mr O’Dowd had apparently indicated in a letter to Stormont’s transport committee that the whole project could take “11 years before completion once it is restarted”.

Asked about it by the News Letter on Monday, the minister said: “I will be looking at my budget in the weeks ahead to see how we move forward projects – York Street will be one of those projects.

"It’s a significant project in scale and size, and in its technical challenges… we have to get it right.

"I will be in a better position in a number of weeks to respond to that question in terms of time frame.”