Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans: Kirklees
The West Yorkshire Combined Authority and Kirklees Council are developing Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans for West Yorkshire.
What is the draft Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan for Kirklees?
In 2017 the Government published its first Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (available online – click here to view it), which was accompanied by guidance for local authorities on ways to identify improvements for cycling and walking improvements, through the development of Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans – known as “LCWIPs”.
More background information on LCWIPs can be found in the full document of the draft phase one LCWIP for Kirklees.
Why are we developing a Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan for Kirklees?
Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans are being developed to help enable funding to be secured to construct all the improvements identified through this work. Although there is currently no guaranteed funding for the improvements in this draft phase one LCWIP, having a Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan in place will help us decide what improvements to make and will help us make the case to Government for future investment in walking and cycling in Kirklees district.
How are we developing Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Strategies?
We are developing Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans for Kirklees alongside each of the other constituent areas within West Yorkshire. Our approach follows government guidance, and builds on work to identify networks for walking and cycling already carried out by partners in the region.
A lot of work is needed to create a comprehensive Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan that covers all the urban and rural areas of Kirklees district and several phases of development are envisaged. The work underway now should be seen as the first phase of a longer term development process.
For this first phase of work, specific areas of focus were selected for walking and cycling based on a number of factors. Phase one of the LCWIP for Kirklees includes plans to improve walking in Dewsbury town centre, and to improve cycling provision in east Huddersfield.
For walking, Dewsbury town centre was chosen as a first Core Walking Zone to be assessed through the LCWIP approach in Kirklees as it was identified as a priority to focus on addressing severance issues caused by highways which act as a ring road around the town centre (A638 and A644) and on access to Kirklees College and the enlarged police station.
A walking network map has been developed for Dewsbury town centre, and a programme of improvements for walking into the town centre has been identified.
For cycling, East Huddersfield was chosen as it shows good cycling potential and propensity to cycle. The Wakefield Road A642 corridor from Fenay Bridge to Huddersfield was chosen as the area of focus. There are already committed plans to improve cycling infrastructure on the other key corridor to the east of Huddersfield - the A62 Smart Corridor.
A network map of desire lines for cycling has been created, and the desire lines identified were then prioritised to identify which route should be assessed in more detail as part of this phase of work. The route from Waterloo into Huddersfield town centre has been assessed in more detail.
More information on the development process is provided in the full document of the draft phase one LCWIP for Kirklees which can be downloaded using the link below.
Documents
Engagement and next steps
Following a period of public engagement in autumn 2019, a report detailing the feedback received and the next steps is currently being produced. In the meantime, a short engagement summary can be found in the Documents and Plans section of this page.
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