Today’s meeting of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority Investment Committee is being asked to back the addition of 10 new schemes with a combined completed value of £383.486 million to its Local Growth Fund and West Yorkshire plus Transport Fund programme.
Investment Committee members will be asked to support just over £4 million of work to progress their development as part of a forecast £125 million of Combined Authority funding.
Among the proposed schemes are a full-scale, £22.9 million, 400kph facility to test high-speed trains and high-speed rail infrastructure, an Inland Port at Stourton in Leeds and a Huddersfield Gateway project that would see substantial redevelopment of the town’s station area including a former goods shed and yard.
Eight cycle infrastructure projects totalling 19km, in Huddersfield’s town centre and at Cooper Bridge, in Leeds, on the Castleford-Wakefield Greenway, the Leeds-Liverpool Canal in Shipley and the Huddersfield Narrow Canal from Slaithwaite are also among the 10 proposed schemes.
The planned Leeds City Centre Package would transform key areas of the city centre by the removal of general traffic by 2021. The scheme supports the creation of a world class gateway in City Square, the Leeds Station Integrated Masterplan and regeneration in the South Bank. The package of measures also includes Inner Ring Road capacity improvements at Armley Gyratory and on the M621 by 2022 to accommodate the displaced traffic.
Plans to open up a number of sites in Halifax Town Centre for much-needed new housing, to develop three key heritage buildings in Bradford city centre and create a new south-east gateway to Wakefield city centre are also among the new schemes being presented to the meeting. Also, the possibility of creating around 2,500 additional parking spaces at 12 more rail stations across West Yorkshire will be investigated along with the development of City Region Enterprise Zones at 10 locations along the M62 corridor in the Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield districts.
Cllr Peter Box, Chair of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority Investment Committee said:
“In 2017/2018, we invested £150,428,410 of capital funding including £90.53 million of funding through the Leeds City Region Growth Deal.
To ensure we keep up the momentum on delivering projects through our Local Growth Fund and West Yorkshire plus Transport Fund, and these 10 schemes would require an additional £125.2 million of Combined Authority funding.
“They are ambitious schemes designed to generate inclusive economic growth from which everyone across West Yorkshire and the City Region can benefit, and to improve our transport network to support that growth and connect people with jobs and training opportunities.”
The West Yorkshire-plus Transport Fund, and the Leeds City Region Growth Deal – a £1 billion package of Government investment through the West Yorkshire Combined Authority and Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership (LEP) to accelerate growth and create jobs across Leeds City Region.
