A £2.7m plan to resurface and improve roads across Kirklees has been given the green light.

Kirklees Cabinet agreed to the plans which will include redesigning part of Huddersfield’s ring road.

The council wants to alter the clockwise side of Castlegate in a bid to stop motorists tailing all the way back to Chapel Hill.

Once work begins it will mean a temporary closure of the outer ring road.

At today (Tuesday’s) Cabinet meeting councillors agreed cash as follows, largely to be spent on resurfacing:

* A62 Castlegate, from Manchester Road to Trinity Street - £420,000.

* A652 Bradford Road, Batley, from North Street to Rouse Mill Lane - £680,000.

* A644 Huddersfield Road, Mirfield, from Steanard Lane to Knowl Road - £400,000.

* Luck Lane, Paddock, from Church Street to link road - £270,000.

* Farnley Road, Farnley Tyas, from Storthes Hall Lane to Manor Road - £310,000.

* Newsome Road South, Newsome, from Jackroyd Lane to Bridge Street - £250,000.

* Healey Lane, Batley, from Batley Road to Healey Lane - £370,000.

The section of Castlegate, Huddersfield, that is due to be altered. Pic courtesy Google

Clr Musarrat Khan, Cabinet member for Highways, said government rules meant they had “limited resources which meant they had to take away resources from residential streets to principal roads” and under this regime the council “loses its ability to respond to resident requests for streets which are in a state of disrepair.”

Councillors said they were penalised if they spent money on unclassified roads - residential roads - and would lose money if it wasn’t spent on categories the government classed as a priority, such as A, B and C roads.

Council leader Clr David Sheard said it was “extremely difficult to see the logic” in the government’s thinking.

He said they were “patching patches” in light of the loss of pothole funding from the government.

Cash from the Government’s Pothole Action Fund is less than anticipated. Kirklees will get £312,000 rather than the £452,000 it hoped for.

Cabinet also agreed a two-year Highways spending plan, although it has less cash from the government than it had anticipated, down from £14.7m to £13.6m.

Huddersfield Town Hall

Local roads set to be resurfaced over the next two years include Firth Street, Huddersfield; Scar Lane, Golcar; Lidget Street, Lindley; Park Road, Crosland Moor; Leymoor Road, Golcar and Radcliffe Road, Milnsbridge, among many more.

Kirklees also hopes for £1.2m for cycling and walking schemes from the West Yorkshire Combined Authority. It would fund, among other things, a Huddersfield town centre scheme.

Kirklees has £1.3m for flood work, wich includes repairing old culverts.

The plan for Huddersfield’s ring road is the most high-profile.

It will involve re-designing the clockwise lanes on the stretch between Huddersfield Leisure Centre and Trinity Street.

Highways engineers say this is because too many people are “hogging” the inside lane when they don’t need to.

Road surveys have found that a large amount of traffic heading for the A629 Halifax Road junction is getting in the same queue as the earlier A640 turning, so jams are building up.

The lanes will be altered so that the inside lane is only for access to Springwood, the A640 Trinity Street and the M62 westbound.

The middle lane will be signposted and marked as the lane to use for Halifax Road and the M62 eastbound.

That lane will then split into two lanes prior to the junction with Trinity Street to keep the traffic capacity on the north side of the ring road the same.

The ring road will have to be closed for some of the work – which will also include new cycle crossings at the Outcote Bank and Trinity Street junctions.

To avoid gridlock, the council says its contractors will work between 7pm and 11pm, although some of the outer junctions will have to be closed at times.