Greens launch petition to halt road building across Bradford

Bradford Green Party have launched a petition calling on Bradford Council to ditch road building plans across the district.

Local Green councillors and campaigners are calling on Bradford Council to pause all new major road schemes across our District until their impact on our environment and air pollution has been fully assessed.

Councillor Martin Love said, “New roads create new traffic. That’s a fact that Bradford Council can’t escape. More traffic means more environment- and health-wrecking emissions being pumped into the air.

“Bradford Council needs to ditch its dangerous fixation with roadbuilding, and instead look at investing in our public transport network as well as infrastructure to improve cycling and walking.

“Report after report has shown that overall traffic increases substantially once new roads are opened. You only have to look at what happened with the Bingley Bypass to see that in practice. It may have reduced congestion in the centre of Bingley, but the traffic jams have just moved further down the A650 to Saltaire.”

As part of its pledge to respond to the climate crisis, West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) is now undertaking a Climate Impact Audit of some of the road schemes in the pipeline. But not all schemes are included in this review.

Matt Edwards, Community Campaigner for Tong Ward said “We want WYCA to look at everything in their pipeline and look at the big picture here. Are these multi-million projects going to have a positive impact on the lives of residents and our environment?

“Two of the biggest road building projects in Bradford are the Tong Valley Road and the Tong Street widening project which will both run right through the centre of the ward.

“The streets close to Tong Street are statistically ranked as some of the most unhealthy in our district largely due to air pollution. At a time when the community in BD4 needs Bradford Council’s help to improve their health, Bradford Council is planning to spend more money on new and wider roads which will just funnel even more vehicles through the area making air pollution far worse.”

You can sign the petition below: