Plans for city's £64m relief road scrapped
Bradford Council said plans for a tram system linking the city with Leeds was one reason the road was no longer needed
- Published
Plans for a £64m relief road in Bradford have been scrapped despite more than £1m already having been spent on the scheme.
Bradford Council said the upcoming tram system between the city and Leeds was one of the reasons the South East Bradford Access Road was no longer needed.
The project would have seen a new route created between Holme Wood and Westgate Hill Street in Tong, easing traffic on Tong Street and in the Holme Wood Estate.
A council spokesperson said it would be "possible to deliver sufficient homes and jobs for Bradford district without the need for an access road".
The project was cancelled at a meeting of West Yorkshire Combined Authority on Thursday.
After the meeting, Green Party councillor Matt Edwards said the scheme had always been on “a road to nowhere”.
“The funds would always have been better spent being toward improving Tong Street – a scheme Bradford has been waiting decades for,” he added.
Transport bosses previously said the road would “improve travel times, attract more business and unlock land for 2,500 new homes”.
But it was one of several infrastructure projects to be paused in 2022 due to rising costs.
The combined authority had already spent more than £1m on developing the plans over the past several years, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
A Bradford Council spokesperson said the tram line planned as part of the new mass transit network between Bradford and Leeds meant the road project was no longer a high priority.
Since the relief road was first planned "a number of key factors have changed, including the changing locations of new housing and economic development in this part of West Yorkshire," they said.
The new tram system would provide a "more sustainable transport solution to existing and new communities than an access road," the spokesperson added.
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