£8m works to upgrade major road ‘poor value for money’

A PROPOSED £8m upgrade to a one-and-a-quarter mile stretch of major road in West Yorkshire has been criticised as being “very poor value for money”.

Campaign group Action for Yorkshire Transport said the multi-million-pound plan for the A62 Leeds Road in Huddersfield, involving a section of road running from the “gateway junction” of Northumberland Street in the town centre to Old Fieldhouse Lane, “should be completely rethought”.

The cost of the upgrade equates to £1,208 per foot.

Plans unveiled by Kirklees Council in November 2018 aimed to tackle bottlenecks on the busiest route through Huddersfield.

The council said it would ease congestion, improve travel times and drive up air quality by “greening” the area via urban street plantations.

The work, scheduled for completion in 2021, was described as “dynamic”, “transformational” and “crucial.”

But in a three-page response to consultation on the project, Mark Parry, chair of Leeds-based Action for Yorkshire Transport, said it would do nothing to improve the environment overall, to improve the flow of buses in the long term or to encourage active travel.

He said an estimated cost for the scheme could not be found on the consultation site operated by West Yorkshire Combined Authority.

Kirklees Council’s Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Peter McBride, said the aims and objectives of the scheme were to reduce congestion and increase capacity along the A62 Leeds Road corridor.