FAQs

There is an opportunity to improve the quality of walking and cycling routes through widening and re-surfacing some paths, improving crossing points and adding clear signage to make wayfinding straightforward and reliable. This will improve access from residential areas of Pudsey and the town centre to the railway station, with frequent connections to Leeds, Bradford and the Calder Valley.

The proposals for this location are:

• To raise awareness of safe and convenient routes from Pudsey town centre to New Pudsey rail station for pedestrians and cyclists and to make the routes legible and easy to follow by introducing additional wayfinding signs
• To enhance some of the local footpaths to maximise the potential to use direct links and make walking to the railway station a pleasant experience
• To enhance cycling links to the railway station and the cycle superhighway by creating a signed on-road cycle route and provide additional/improved traffic-free linkages
• To look at opportunities to enhance crossing points to make walking and cycling routes as direct and easy to follow as possible

The estimated cost of the Pudsey Walking and Cycling Links scheme is £600,000.

West Yorkshire Combined Authority is responsible for delivering the scheme. Leeds City Council is working in partnership with the West Yorkshire Combined Authority. The Combined Authority works with Local Authorities and businesses across West Yorkshire and York to create economic growth through large and small scale infrastructure projects such as this.

This scheme provides improvements to the following areas between the centre of Pudsey and New Pudsey rail station:

·  Wayfinding signage:

o  Junction of Old Road and Bradford Road

o  Across the railway tracks from New Pudsey Square

o  Between Pudsey Primrose Hill Primary School and the underpass across Stanningley Road

o  Junction of Westdale Drive and Thorpe Road

o  Junction of Westdale Road and Westdale Garden

o  Junction of Brunswick Road and Lodge Road

o  Junction of Brunswick Road and Richardshaw Lane

o  Top of Vicarage Drive

o  Middle of Tofts Road

o  Three locations along Church Lane

·  Existing public footpath resurfacing:

o  Footpath opposite Old Road towards the bottom of New Pudsey Square (next to railway)

o  South east edge of Mark and Spencers car park, leading to the edge of Stanningley Bypass

o  Between Westdale Drive and Westdale Road

o  Between Westdale Gardens and Cemetery Road

o  Between Cemetery Road and Meadowhurst Gardens

o  Vicarage Drive

·  Existing footpath widening:

o  From New Pudsey rail station car park, along the railway to Owlcotes car park

o  Footpath near Westdale Grove

o  Junction of Cemetery Road and Highfield Green to Tofts Road

·  Enhancement of route (subject to third party landowners consent):

o  Pedestrian route from the footpath from the railway alongside Owlcotes and around the side of Marks and Spencers, to the edge of the car park

·  Advisory Cycle route along a road:

o  Primrose Hill

o  Thorpe Road – Lodge Road – Brunswick Road – Richardshaw Lane to the crossroads of Lidget Hill and Church Lane

o  Junction of Westdale Road and Westdale Gardens to the junction of Westdale Road and Highfield Green

·  Underpass Improvements – across Stanningley Bypass (near Pudsey Primrose Hill Primary School)

·  Formal/Informing Crossing (subject to further assessment):

o  Junction of Westdale Road and Westdale Gardens

o Junction of Westdale Road and Highfield Green

The consultation is open from Monday 16 September until Monday 14 October.

You can take part by visiting our website: www.yourvoice.westyorks-ca.gov.uk/PudseyWalking to review all the latest information, and find a link to a survey/feedback form to submit your views. You can also take part in the question and answer (Q&A) section of the page, if you have any questions not suitably answered by these FAQs. If you would like to submit your feedback by email, please do so to: yourvoice@westyorks-ca.gov.uk, or in writing to: FREEPOST Consultation Team (WYCA).

The New Pudsey railway station is located some distance away from the town of Pudsey, with Stanningley Bypass running in between the town and its railway station. Direct walking and cycling routes are therefore limited and may not be easy to find and follow.

The scheme seeks to address this by improving the quality of walking and cycling routes through widening and re-surfacing some paths, improving crossing points and adding clear signage to make wayfinding straightforward and reliable. This will improve access from residential areas of Pudsey and the town centre to the railway station, with frequent connections to Leeds, Bradford and the Calder Valley.

The aims of the scheme are to:

• Contribute to an overall increase patronage on public transport by providing better quality and safe pedestrian and cycling routes and enhanced wayfinding from Pudsey town centre to New Pudsey Rail Station
• Contribute to an overall improvement in air quality and environmental impacts in the district by encouraging more people to use sustainable and active modes of travel such as walking, cycling and rail

o  Do nothing – Retain existing quality of pedestrian and cycling routes within this location

o  Low cost option – Retain existing quality of pedestrian and cycling routes within the area but improve wayfinding at key locations between New Pudsey rail station and Pudsey town centre

o  Medium cost option – Introduce wayfinding to enable legibility of existing walking and cycling routes, enhance local footpaths and crossing points and implement signed on-road cycle routes - the preferred option which delivers the most benefits regarding improving journey times, improving safety, reducing congestion and coming within budget

o  High cost option – medium cost options plus footbridge across Stanningley Bypass

Subject to approval, works will start on site in 2020.

Detailed design will commence following this public engagement and is aimed to be completed in early 2020.

Following approval of the full business case for this project we expect to begin work on this scheme in 2020.

We welcome the opinions and feedback of anyone. Whether you travel by public transport, walk, drive, or cycle, are a business owner, or just travel through the area, your views, opinion and insight is valuable to us to shape our project. Please share the link [www.yourvoice.westyorks-ca.gov.uk/PudseyWalking] with anyone you think would be interested in taking part. If you intend to submit a joint response on behalf of a group/organisation, please share the link with your colleagues/members so they have the opportunity to provide an individual response, should they wish to do so.

The scheme is being delivered by West Yorkshire Combined Authority with funding from the Connecting Leeds programme.

In December 2016, Transport Committee considered the submission of the Leeds Strategic Outline Case, which was a £270m package of measures to improve public transport in Leeds District. It included the £173.5m which had previously be identified for the NGT trolleybus project. The documentation was submitted to the Department for Transport in December and is available at: http://www.westyorks-ca.gov.uk/News/Articles/Leeds-Transport-Strategy-submision/ 

Monies from Leeds City Council and the West Yorkshire Combined Authority of £8.800m and £0.966m respectively will increase the funding to £183.266m. The programme also includes private sector finance including expenditure on more environmentally friendly buses by bus operators bringing the total programme investment to over £270m.

Following consideration of the submission, the Department approved the programme on 21 April 2017. The main conditions of the grant from the DfT are that the funding is to be used for public transport improvements in Leeds which must be substantially complete by March 2021. More information about those transport improvements can be found at: https://www.leeds.gov.uk/parking-roads-and-travel/connecting-leeds-and-transforming-travel/

This scheme has funding allocated to it as part of the Connecting Leeds programme and therefore the funding will not be able to be spent on any other proposals or scheme. If the Combined Authority does not accept the business case, then the scheme cannot go ahead and the money put aside for this project will be reallocated elsewhere in the Connecting Leeds programme.

The West Yorkshire Combined Authority was formed in April 2014 to be the driving force for economic growth across the Kirklees, Bradford, Leeds, Calderdale and Wakefield districts and the City of York Council area.  The West Yorkshire Combined Authority brings together key decision-making powers into a single body.  To find out more visit: (External link)www.westyorks-ca.gov.uk(External link) (opens in a new page).

An Expression of Interest for funding to investigate locations to improve local waiting facilities and information provision was approved in 2017. This provided around £80,000 of funding to develop the project to the Outline Business Case stage (OBC).  The OBC develops preliminary designs, undertakes traffic modelling work to determine a preferred option and estimates scheme costs, risk etc.

The OBC was submitted to the Combined Authority’s assurance process in March 2019 and approved in May 2019.  The project is now being developed to Full Business Case (FBC) stage which includes detailed design, public engagement.  The FBC is expected to be submitted to the assurance process in October 2019, where approval to tender for the works will be made.

There will be no increase in noise levels as a result of the improvements.

There will no changes to the bus routes currently serving these locations.

It will not be necessary to acquire any land as part of this scheme and no properties are at risk.

There will be no changes to on-street parking in this location.

Work on-site will not impact any bus routes.

The phasing of roadworks still need to be planned. Nearer the time of construction local residents and businesses will be provided with more detail about what will happen and where, but overall disruption will be kept to a minimum.

It will not be necessary to carry out any roadworks at night.  All roadworks will be carried out during the working day, with some work possible carried out on a weekend.

In certain circumstances, compensation can be paid for loss of amenity and value of property through Part 1 of the Land Compensation Act 1973. Claims through Part 1 of this Act are valid after 12 months of the opening of the scheme.

Compensation is payable if it can be demonstrated that the highway improvements have negatively affected the value of land and buildings. Land and property owners would need to submit a ‘blight claim’ to the Council if they consider that the improvements have negatively impacted on the value of the land and buildings.

No, as all of the work is within the public highway or on Leeds City Council land, it is classed as permitted development granted to the Highway Authority under the Town and Country Planning Act. We can also use our powers under the Highways Act to do this work.

There are no perceived benefits to bus users with regards to this scheme.

Non-bus users will benefit from these improvements in terms of enhanced pedestrian and cycle routes at this location which will increase the quality of the local environment generally, plus wayfinding signage to make routes more legible and easier to find and follow.

No existing bus stops will be improved as a result of this scheme.

There will be no new bus stops as a result of this scheme.

No bus stops will be taken away as a result of this scheme.

All bus routes in the area will continue to operate.

In 2016 we started a conversation with people who live and work in Leeds about the future of transport in the city. We had more than 8,000 responses, with a clear message that improvements need to be made to public transport.

A number of schemes were identified from this transport conversation and some small scale engagement took place through the Leeds Community Committees. Since then, local ward members have reviewed the refined list of schemes located in their areas.

We are now at the next stage in developing this scheme and residents, businesses and the general public are now being given an opportunity to comment on these proposals.

From 16 September to 14 October we are running a public engagement and inviting comments and questions from the public. Your comments will help inform the current proposals and provide an opportunity to identify any issues that we are not aware of.

We welcome opinions and feedback from anyone. Whether you travel by public transport, walk, drive, cycle are a business owner or just travel through the area, your views and insight is valuable to us to shape our scheme.

You will be able to fill in an online survey or visit us at a drop-in session. More information about this is on the project page: www.yourvoice.westyorks-ca.gov.uk/PudseyWalking.

Yes, we would welcome any group/organisational views on this scheme. Please make sure that you have permission to comment on behalf of your group/organisation.

Yes, please share the link to the project page with anyone you think would be interested in taking part. If you intend to submit a joint response on behalf of a group/organisation, please share the link so people have the opportunity to provide an individual response, should they wish to do so.

Updates will be provided to those who have registered to follow the project via www.yourvoice.westyorks-ca.gov.uk/PudseyWalking and via press articles.

Your comments will help inform the current proposals and provide an opportunity to identify any issues that we are not aware of.