A COMMUNITY stalwart is calling for more funds to be made available for a major crossroad development to accelerate its progress after its completion date was delayed until next year.

The multi-million pound improvement works at Greengates Crossroads, where Harrogate Road and New Line meet, were originally due to be finished by October this year.

This would have meant a construction period of 64 weeks, after the project began back in July last year.

But that completion date has now been pushed back until at least spring 2022.

A Bradford Council spokesperson explained this was due to two key reasons: the pandemic which forced the site to be closed for a week and delayed the supply of materials, and unrecorded buried services (such as phonelines) being found.

The news of the delay comes amid growing frustration among people in the local area and those who use the busy, popular junction as their commuting route.

Traffic has visibly increased as Covid-19 restrictions have been released and a five-way traffic light system - which was reduced to a four-way system from the week commencing August 9 - only exacerbated congestion.

This is only set to get worse when schools return, with many motorists choosing to use the swing bridge over Leeds-Liverpool Canal, at Apperley Bridge, as an alternative route, which has led to traffic bottlenecking at peak times.

Michael Frazer, Secretary of the Friends of Greengates Cenotaph community group, said because of the "exceptional" circumstances of the pandemic and unforeseen underground services, Bradford Council should agree a "no fault variation".

This would mean releasing more cash so the contractors, Howard Civil Engineering, could hire extra workers to accelerate the completion date, according to Mr Frazer.

He feels this is paramount as he said residents are becoming "fed up" with the delays.

He also claims the roadworks are having a detrimental effect on the area's economy and worries what it might be doing to the health of locals.

Mr Frazer said: "Huge traffic queues are belching out pollutants and I'm worried about the impact on kid's health and no monitoring by council- at least not publicly available.

"There's more noise pollution as bikes, lorries and cars accelerate to beat the lights.

"Footfall is down because people are avoiding the roadworks and many small businesses are struggling to survive.

"Pedestrian safety is a problem because temporary traffic lights change with no pause to allow pedestrian crossing.

"Residents are generally fed up at delays, with completion over seven months away, and we want council to intervene."

The Bradford Council spokesperson said: “The completion of the project is not now expected until around spring 2022. There are a several reasons for this.

"We have found a number of unrecorded buried services which we weren’t expecting and this means services including Openreach, Northern Powergrid, Virgin Media, Northern Gas Networks and Yorkshire Water need more time to complete their diversions.

“The project has also been impacted by Covid 19 which forced the site to close for a week and this has delayed the supply of materials.

“The junction has had traffic running in four phases for several months. We believe is the only way to carry out the work safely.

“We appreciate that the relaxation of Covid restrictions has meant there has been an increase in traffic volumes and therefore longer queue lengths through the works.

“We are working hard to balance the queues at the junction with regular adjustments to timing.

“We continue to review options to ease the delays and assure residents that we are doing our very best to complete the scheme as quickly as we reasonably can and trying to balance out the inevitable congestion as fairly as we can.”

A spokesperson for Howard Civil Engineering said: "Howard Civil Engineering take environmental matters seriously and in line with our sustainability goals for the remainder of the project we are switching to HVO fuel for all our machinery and plant which will create massive benefits in terms of Co2 emissions.

"On average for every 1,000ltr of HVO burnt it only produces 195kg Co2 compared to 3.6tn Co2 of diesel, so massive savings in terms of Co2 produced onsite.

"We look at many different aspects to protect the environment and reduce emissions whilst we carry out works."