Kirklees Together

Our Cabinet have just approved a new strategy for funding around major transport schemes.

What type of improvements does this funding cover?

Our programme of major transport work covers walking and cycling, relieving traffic congestion, improving public transport, and supporting our green agenda by reducing the carbon output from our roads.

Why is a new strategy required?

The aim of this new strategy is to tackle funding shortfalls, and it means changes to our programme of planned works across Kirklees.

These funding shortfalls are mostly due to cost increases over recent years, which in turn are due to spikes in inflation since the Covid-19 pandemic and other national economic pressures.

All of this has had an unavoidable impact on our long-term plans for big transport schemes, because this type of work takes many years to plan and deliver.

What funding is affected?

Our major transport improvements are supported by a lot of complicated funding sources.  If you’d like to find out more about how our funding works, you can check out our council funding guide.

Many of these funding sources are managed by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority – including the West Yorkshire Transport Fund, which is funding a lot of critical projects across Kirklees.  This is the funding source affected by the new strategy just approved by Cabinet.

What is the new strategy?

The new strategy is all about changing the way elements of the West Yorkshire Transport Fund are allocated, to make our key projects once again affordable.

A big part of this is setting a new timeline for the scheme of improvements running from the A62 to Cooper Bridge, which now allows some of the funding from this scheme to be redistributed to other projects.

This will mean a phased approach to the scheme – which will see improvements at Cooper Bridge roundabout delivered during the first phase, and the remaining improvements delivered over a longer period of time (subject to more detailed evaluation of the project).

This redistribution of funding will now support us to deliver lots of different transport improvements across the whole of Kirklees.

Councillor Graham Turner, Cabinet Member for Finance & Regeneration, says:

“Over recent years, it’s no secret that a lot of our major projects have come under financial strain.  We’ve seen a huge inflation on costs and materials, and we’re still seeing struggles in the construction industry following Covid.

“By their very nature, these kind of projects take years to design and deliver – not least because we try to time our various transport projects to create the least possibl disruption for Kirklees residents.  So over the last few years, these rising costs have had a huge impact on our plans across the board.

“Despite all the challenges we face, we remain ambitious for Kirklees, and we’ll continue to invest in our travel infrastructure – and in working with all the relevant partners who can help us deliver great improvements at good value.  We firmly believe this new strategy is the best way to deliver all our most crucial transport projects within budget, and continue delivering improvements for the people of Kirklees.”