PLANS for a Flockton bypass are being drawn up, the Examiner can reveal.
Kirklees Council is in the early stage of looking into building a relief road for the village, the main link to the M1.
The village’s narrow main street, Barnsley Road, is choked with lorries and cars travelling between Huddersfield and the motorway.
Kirkburton councillor Adrian Murphy welcomed the proposal.
“A bypass is long overdue and desperately needed,” he said.
Villagers have been demanding a relief road for decades.
Clr Murphy continued: “Lorries have made life miserable for the residents of Flockton for years. They have thundered at speed along the narrow main road, petrifying residents – especially children – on the narrow footpaths.
“It amazes me that there hasn’t been a serious accident.
“If the bypass goes ahead it will put an end to lorries travelling through Flockton and make the village much safer and more pleasant.”
Clr Murphy, whose Kirkburton ward includes Flockton, said the bypass would have two lanes and be a maximum of two miles long, much shorter than a controversial road which was proposed during the 1990s.
He added: “I’ve seen a very rough plan showing the bypass running from just above the National Mining Museum through towards the water tower of New Hall Prison.
“The former proposal was a massive thing, four or five miles long, running all the way to Cooper Bridge. It would have taken in farmland and farms.”
Clr Murphy said people would have a chance to have their say when the plans were finalised. He said: “We’re still at the very early stages, but we might be ready to hold public meetings on a concrete proposal in a couple of months.”
Another local councillor, Green representative Derek Hardcastle, said he too welcomed the idea.
“I have asked council officials to continue to look at the ideas. They say it would be costly and take a long time, but we need to do something about the traffic in Flockton.”
A council spokesman said: “We have had talks with councillors and residents while undertaking work in Flockton and the idea of a relief road is being discussed”.
THE long way round – plans for a Flockton bypass:
October 1951: Kirkburton Council’s Highways Committee urged the “speedy construction” of a bypass road around Flockton by the West Riding County Council.
June 1968: Clr Arthur Manby, of Kirkburton Council, said lorries were making Flockton a “village of terror”. About the same time the West Riding council revealed that a relief road around the village would cost £1m.
February 1970: Villagers form the Flockton Action Committee to push for a bypass.
April 1970: Huddersfield East MP J P W Mallalieu spoke of his “delight” after the Transport Ministry gives the relief road the go-ahead.
March 1977: The Government confirmed that public spending restrictions meant the bypass would not be built for at least five years.
October 1992: Kirklees Council named the bypass as one of 11 major highways schemes to be carried out by 2005.
June 1997: Kirklees dropped the idea of a bypass, having been unable to secure Government money.
But plans for various roads have always been scrapped before they got past the planning stage.
