Map of The Dewsbury-Batley-Chidswell Sustainable Travel Corridor

Dewsbury-Batley-Chidswell travel corridor – improvements and missed opportunities

In the attached submission. Cycle Kirklees has commented in detail on the latest consultation for the Dewsbury-Batley-Chidswell travel corridor.

Linear sections of this route, especially on Bradford Road are great improvements on the current situation for people cycling. Only limited improvements are planned for people walking, particularly at minor junctions.

Major junctions and road crossings are mostly being done to a low standard with designers opting for shared use crossings with no priority over motor vehicles.

Yet again we observe a lack of political will to reallocate road space away from parking (the storage of personal property on the highway) to provide safety for people travelling through active modes. The result is that large sections of the route don’t have access to safe cycle infrastructure, with cycling existing out of view or on shared footways.

We welcome improvements that have been planned to link this route with the upcoming Dewsbury Town Centre improvements. However, this route does not link to either Batley or Chidswell without people on bikes being expected to join traffic on the busy Bradford Road (A652) and Leeds Road (A653). This would be a critical failure for a DfT funded scheme.

You can find our detailed response to the Kirklees Council’s consultation here (and appendix A here).