£3.4m road revamp

Calderdale Council has applied for a £3.4 million grant from the Local Pinch Point Fund with the Department for Transport.

The proposed plan put forward by Calderdale Council includes obtaining pieces of land from the former Whitehall pub on the corner of Denholmegate Road and Leeds Road, Christ Church on the corner of Wakefield Road and Brighouse Road and the car park in between Leeds Road and Wakefield Road.

The scheme will mean widening Denholmegate Road, creating three lanes on the Wakefield Road exit, and it will involve a completely new look for Leeds Road.

There will be no right turn from Halifax at the usual crossroad junction, instead motorists will have to go round the car park in between the new development and along Wakefield Road. There will also be a new right turn into Leeds Road out of Wakefield Road.

If the bid is successful at the end of May, planning applications will be submitted for the change of use of the non-highway land associated with the highway improvement scheme.

An application will also be submitted for housing on the former Southedge Quarry as part of the new scheme. These will both be submitted in June if the funding is granted. A 106 agreement will be included with teh Southedge Quarry application.

It is thought the new scheme will reduce journey times for large number of trips. It has been supported by the developer of Southedge Quarry, Clugston Developments Ltd/Strata Homes, Leeds City Region Local Economic Partnership (LEP) and Integrated Transport Authority (Metro) as well as Calder Valley MP Craig Whittaker.

The application says: “The scheme will release additional capacity at Hipperholme crossroads, a local highway junction bottleneck, which is one of the most severely congestion hotspots in West Yorkshire, and for which an improvement scheme is a high priority for Calderdale Council.

“It is an ‘isolated’ but stategically important junction on a number of long distance routes, for example from north-west Bradford to M62; and south Bradford and west Leeds to Calderdale. Improvements at this pinch-point will benefit a large number of origin and destination trip pairings.”

It also says that it will have a significant benefit for a number of important business in the area who are dependent on road transport such as Crosslee Plc and Marshalls Plc.

Congestion analysis shows the junction to be the 36th most congested junction in West Yorkshire.

If the grant is successful the council will be consulting residents and businesses about the scheme including the Hipperholme and Lightcliffe ward forum. It is thought work will take place over the winter period.

Improvements have been made at the junction in the past, the most recently with a limited remodelling scheme in 2008.