Traffic lights approved for accident hotspot between Scholes and Brighouse with aim of reducing number of serious crashes

The A649 Halifax Road, Cleckheaton, at its junctions with the A643 Walton Lane and B6120 Scholes Lane, has seen a relatively high number of vehicle crashes resulting in injury, according to a council report.

At a Kirklees Council cabinet committee meeting, an officer explained that this was often due to traffic coming from side roads pulling onto Halifax Road.

All collisions on record within the past five years are said to have resulted from traffic at the junctions turning right and colliding with vehicles on Halifax Road.

The officer explained that drivers who are turning can be caught out by the speed of Halifax Road traffic.

In an attempt to resolve this, a set of traffic lights will be placed at the junctions to control vehicles turning and pedestrians crossing the road.

U-turns will no longer be able to take place between the Walton Lane and Scholes Lane junctions but will be permitted adjacent to the Hartshead Manor Nursing Home and the Sunnybank Close junction.

A one-way “service road” will also be added to provide access for residents between Sunnybank Close and Scholes Lane.

Previously, a proposal of two roundabouts on the stretch was considered but officers said that this would provide little benefit to vulnerable road users like cyclists and pedestrians.

However, at the cabinet meeting Mr Beardsworth, from Beardsworth Nurseries, urged the panel to reconsider the roundabout option and described the traffic light plans as “ill-conceived”.

Speaking with particular reference to the Hartshead Nurseries site off Halifax Road, he explained that several movements happen a day with 3.5 tonne vehicles accessing the site’s small entrance.

He said that the worst problem was that road users expect vehicles making a left turn into the nursery to be instead heading to Brighouse, resulting in near-misses.

An officer agreed that when it comes to making U-turns, a roundabout is more straightforward but explained that it would be more difficult to mitigate excessive speeds with a roundabout in place compared to traffic lights.

He said: “With this particular junction, the dominant flow is the Halifax Road flow in Cleckheaton and away to Halifax and because that is a thing to be aware of, that’s where the speeds tend to be the highest.

“So, traffic signals, by virtue of the way they operate, create stops and starts in traffic and gaps in traffic and these gaps are the gaps that can be taken advantage of by the U-turn drivers at the two extremes of the junction.”

Mr Beardsworth asked the officer if there had been any consideration for the fact that most incidents involve speeding traffic coming from Bailiff Bridge.

The officer replied and explained that a 30mph section of road would be enforced rather than the 40mph at present.

Coun Graham Turner said: “This is a flexible system.

"No system is perfect, never will be, but I think this is a really good system and a really good scheme that should hopefully make lives easier for people and prevent some of those serious accidents occurring.”