Road Clippings Jul - Sept 2001Road Clippings Jul - Sept 2001Relief Road will be so damaging (16 July 2001)
Now we can build the town we want (T&A, 3 July 2001)
At last! Relief for Bingley after 30 years (T&A, 2 July 2001)
by Kathryn Kittley, T&A, 2 July 2001
Work began at long last today on the £47.9 million scheme to create the Bingley relief road - more than 30 years after it was first mooted.
The first diggers were fired up early this morning as construction workers began preparing the site of the five-kilometre-long stretch of dual carriageway from Crossflatts roundabout to Cottingley Bar.
Over the coming months the Aire Valley will become a hive of activity as hundreds of workers divert streams, level land and start on the 26 technically-challenging structures along the route including a multi-million pound viaduct at Cottingley.
Campaigners have welcomed the road saying it will bring an end to decades of traffic congestion which has blighted the town centre.
All the work, being carried out by Amec Capital Projects - due to finish in late 2003 - will be managed from a main site compound set up on the Castlefields Industrial Estate and drivers travelling through the town have been warned to prepare for delays while it is being carried out.
Contractors have moved in - confident that the huge civil engineering project costing £47.9 million will open on schedule in late 2003.
Over the next two years, 500 workers will lay 25,000 cubic metres of concrete, install 2,000 tonnes of structural steel work and finally cover it all with 40,000 tonnes of black top surfacing as a new road is constructed to end the nightmare bottleneck that is Bingley town centre.
The whole project is estimated to take a million hours of manpower from design to completion of the road which will bypass the town centre.
For Highways Agency project manager Peter Scally today marks the culmination of a long involvement with the scheme.
He said: "I am very pleased it has come to fruition because I was involved in 1975 and attended the public inquiry into the Aire Valley Trunk Road which ended in disorder and was abandoned.
"I travel to work by train and each day I see traffic snarled up in Bingley and it will be good to see the congestion which has blighted Bingley for such a long time removed."
Phil Girling, construction director for Amec, said using the design and construct programme would enable the new road to open by the end of 2003 as work would be carried on simultaneously at different sections on route.
He said: "We are confident it is a realistic programme and the Highways Agency is confident the costings presented to them are realistic or they would not have contracted it out to us.
"In terms of construction traffic, people will only notice a difference when we start moving into major spoil shifting and that will not be until next Easter. You won't see the black going down until the early part of 2003."
The first works will enable the contractors to start on 26 major structures on route. Streams will be diverted, land will be levelled and preparation work will start to build a bridge near Crossflatts station. Later this year workers will start to construct a multi-million pound viaduct over the River Aire at Cottingley which will be a major feature of the route.
Eric Pickering, site representative for agents Bapti, said: "One of the first areas we will tackle is to culvert a stream at Morton Beck and create a tunnel which will allow vehicles to run over the beck but all the work we are doing initially is enabling work along the route."
Mark Rand, president of Bingley Civic Trust, which has supported the relief road since the idea was first aired publicly, said he was delighted that the first sods were being lifted.
"It will enable the regeneration of the town and particularly the town centre where it's quite obvious that business is blighted by traffic. I look forward to the relief, quite literally, the new road will bring."
Pat Rand, chairman of the Better Bingley Campaign, established to fight for the road a decade ago, said it was wonderful to finally see the signs declaring work was starting.
Shipley Labour MP Chris Leslie, who pressed ministers to agree the scheme, said: "There will be disruption but in the long run it will prove worth it because people will realise it is better to have a bit of disruption for the sake of a better transport system in the long term."
A control centre for the work has been set up on the Castlefields estate.
Mr Girling said they would be trying to reuse most of the spoil generated at the point of excavation. Any remaining material would be deposited locally.
Protesters today condemned the start of work on the relief road, claiming it would increase traffic by more than 60 per cent.
Transport 2000, the national environmental transport pressure group, believes a package of sustainable transport measures with a park and ride scheme at the town station would better ease congestion.
Lynn Sloman, assistant director of the campaign, said it would increase peak hour car commuting into Bradford.
Bingley Environmental Transport Association yesterday held a protest march and picnic along the route of the road from Crossflatts to Bingley South Bog.
The group fears the road will damage the bog, a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
T&A Editorial
The relief around Bingley today is almost palpable. After a wait of more than 30 years, the contractors who will see the town's bypass through to completion in late 2003 are on site and underway.
For many of those who have suffered the misery of commuting down the A650 into Bradford through Bingley in the morning the excitement may be almost too much to bear.
If ever there was a town blighted by traffic, then Bingley is it. If ever there was a major transport route so inadequately catered for in the standard and scale of its provision, then this trunk road tops the list. If ever a road can be proved to have damaged the potential for business growth along its length, then the A650 is a clear winner.
Certainly, there will be disruption and there will be some environmental damage. But, sometimes, it is worth it and the vast majority of local residents clearly agree, despite the claims of a small minority of protesters.
But anyone who uses this route, or lives along it, knows that the eventual completion of Bingley Relief Road is only part of the story.
There can be no doubt that the town will benefit from an easing of congestion - but it is clear that much of it will simply be passed further down the valley to Saltaire and Shipley.
Now is the time to rejuvenate efforts to find a constructive solution to deal with that end of the problem. Bradford Council needs to start working now on a plan to ease the added pressure further down the route.
Bingley's joy must not be allowed to become Saltaire and Shipley's misery.
by Kathryn Kittley, T&A, 3 July 2001
More than a million pounds will be spent to secure the renaissance of Bingley town centre when the relief road opens in autumn 2003.
As work started in earnest on the biggest civil engineering project the district has seen, residents of Bingley and traders - who have waited more than 30 years for the road to be built - were already discussing their vision of the future of the market town.
In a workshop at Bingley Arts Centre to brainstorm improvements which would benefit the town, residents heard that Bradford Council had ring-fenced £1.1 million from capital receipts from the sale of land which would be spent on boosting the market town.
Bingley has suffered from lack of aesthetic and practical development because people were reluctant to spend any money on upgrades until a decision was reached on proposals for a town centre bypass.
About 40 people who attended the first session put forward a shopping list of how the cash should be spent with pedestrianisation, a one-way system for Main Street and more car parking places suggested as high priority.
Nick Riding, senior planning officer at Bradford Council, said by taking action now, confidence of potential investors would be increased and more business people would be attracted to the area.
"Bingley has three rivers - the river Aire, the canal... and the river of steel going along Main Street each day. We want to discharge through-traffic when the road is built, we do not want people coming through town and going out the other side."
Bingley resident Alan McCormick said Gordon Street in Saltaire was a positive example of how on-street parking could aid trade because drivers could stop and pop into the shops easily.
"There are four banks in Bingley and you cannot get anywhere near them.We need to have some form of on-street parking."
Other ideas included creating a public square near the arts centre, reducing shop rates, slowing down traffic and installing public toilets.
Meanwhile existing businesses gave a mixed reaction to the work which is expected to boost the town's economy while it is carried out and pave the way for new investment.
Brian Loughrey, who owns Simply Scrumptious sandwich shop on Main Street, described the start of the road as "magic" and said he would consider doing a contractors special sandwich to cater for the custom the work could bring.
"We have been through a lean time through foot and mouth, with all businesses in Bingley suffering and trade right down. So hopefully an influx of workers will benefit everyone."
"The workshops are looking at how the town can be improved in three years' time, but people need to pull together to try to encourage more business into town now so when the relief road is completed we will be up and running."
Pat Oxley who runs Five Rise Hotel with her husband William said she hoped people involved in the construction project would keep her nine-bedroom business ticking over.
"About a month ago we started taking inquiries for accommodation from people involved with the road with several people ringing from Cheshire and London. It tends to be people on a senior level like architects and people up the line.
"Hopefully it will boost our business and residents will bring other people into Oxley's Restaurant for entertaining, especially when people are coming in from head office to see the scheme."
"The road will allow more tourists to come to the area and for Bingley to get back to being a nice market town."
"It will also help Bingley change. There has been a lot of work done in Keighley and Shipley but in Bingley it has been difficult because people are waiting for the road."
John Newsham, landlord of the Ferrands Arms in Bingley, said: "It may well boost trade. I am hoping if contractors are staying round here they might want to come in for a pint and socialise after work."
However Keith Yardley of Five Rise Taxis expressed concern about delays the construction may cause.
"A few of the workers might use the taxis but they are not going to be going very far. There might be a small increase in usage but drivers will spend a lot more time queuing in traffic while the road is being built because there will be a lot of upheaval while the bridge is being built at Crossflatts."
Phil Girling, construction director for Amec, said of the 500-strong workforce, some people had been brought in through local recruiting agencies, some materials would come from local quarries and about 50 items of plant machinery had been hired locally for the job.
"As a company we make positive use of the resources and labour and it has to have a knock on effect for the local economy because there will be people spending their working day in Bingley and so they will spend their money there.":
"People will be living here and lodging here and a lot of items purchased even for the offices will be bought through local suppliers for example, photocopying paper."
Letters, T&A, 16 July 2001
SIR - Two weeks ago, around 100 people marched in protest at the Bingley Relief Road being built.
During the course of the march, which was walked parallel to the proposed road, it became clear how the location would be irreparably damaged by the new road. The unique Bingley Bog will be damaged and the general tranquillity of the area from the canal will be afflicted by increased noise.
From a conventional perspective, it seems sensible to remove the traffic from Bingley Main Street but the congestion will merely be diverted.
It is a paradoxical fact that upgraded roads attract more traffic as more journeys are made, and the congestion which the roads were meant to ease would actually increase.
After five years following the completion of the Bingley Road, maintenance of it will pass from the highway agency to the local council; this would inevitably cause council tax to rise, as the upkeep would prove very expensive.
Alec Suchi, Allerton Road, Bradford.