Leeds City Council has successfully been awarded funding for five schemes designed to enable residents to choose more active and sustainable modes of travel and improve road safety for everyone.

A part of a £200million funding pot, which Active Travel England expects to generate up to 16 million extra walking and cycling trips every year from, the Leeds-based schemes will go out to public consultation this financial year. Stakeholders, businesses, residents and the public will be able to have their say on the proposals and shape the designs.

The five areas that make up the pot are:

• Armley Town Street – plans aim to enhance and uplift Armley Town Street whilst providing bus priority improvements (£2.9million)
• Bentley Residential Streets, Meanwood – traffic management measures in the area (£0.35million).
  Eastern Gateway, Leeds City Centre – safer, segregated, two-way cycle tracks on Templar Street and Bridge Street to link together existing cycle tracks on Vicar Lane and Eastgate. Improvements to pavements and pedestrian crossings are also included in the plans (£0.4million).
• Holbeck Connector, Whitehall Road – extend segregated cycle tracks on Whitehall Road, near the Wellington Place offices, to link to the existing cycle track adjacent to A643 Ingram Distributor, near Dunelm. (£2.3million).
• Westgate Connector – extend segregated cycle tracks on Westgate and create a safer, segregated, two-way cycle track on Park Lane and Burley Street providing a safe link from the western end of Burley Road to the western edge of the city centre. Improvements to pavements and pedestrian crossings are also included in the plans (£1.8million).

Depending on public consultation, the schemes are scheduled to be delivered by March 2025.

Councillor Helen Hayden, Leeds City Council’s executive member for infrastructure and sustainable development, said: “This funding is about making walking, wheeling, cycling and public transport more desirable, with many of the schemes providing links to existing cycling infrastructure, creating a wider cycling network and a better-connected Leeds. Investments like this help toward our Vision Zero Strategy of eliminating serious injury and deaths on Leeds roads by 2040 by creating safer walking and cycling links in key areas of the city and improving road safety for everyone.

“I want to increase the areas of Leeds that provide more options to how people can get around and I want residents to feel safe when walking and cycling on Leeds streets”.

The plans aim to make walking, cycling and using public transport more desirable and feed into the Leeds Transport Strategy targets of increasing cycling by 400%, walking by 33% and bus uptake by 130%.

The funding follows on from successful bids to Active Travel England’s Active Travel Fund tranches 1-3, creating a combined total of £22million being secured for areas in Leeds. The funding was secured by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority and local authority partners from the Department for Transport’s (DfT) Active Travel Fund.

Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire, said: “We want to make West Yorkshire a better-connected region with an easier-to-use and greener transport network. Cycling, walking and wheeling have a vital role to play and it is fantastic that we have secured funding to improve facilities in Leeds and beyond.

“This additional investment will help us boost connections, grow our economy and tackle the climate emergency as we aim to become a net zero carbon region by 2038.”

(File Picture – Leeds City Council)