Main contractor Costain has been waiting for the green light on the £260m project since January 2022.
The Department of Transport first pushed back its decision to June 2022, then postponed until December 2022, before putting it off again until 5 September 2023.
Now on this deadline day, the transport minister announced the Government required a further 9 months to consider the Development Consent application with a decision now pencilled in for 5 June 2024.
If this deadline is kept ministers would have been sitting on the report for nearly three years since being handed it in October 2021.
The original delay was blamed on the need for the Government to give its response to the Sir Peter Hendy Union Connectivity Review.
The announcement is another setback for Costain, which was originally due to start construction between July and September 2022 and end in 2024/5.
Hopes that the project would finally get underway were raised under Liz Truss’s brief tenure as Prime Minister.
The mini-budget set by then Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng included the dualling of the A1 in the fast-track 138-project growth plan.
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