Bradford Council has put together a bid for transport cash which aims to earn almost £100 million over five years in improvement grants for the district.

The draft version of the West Yorkshire Local Transport Plan goes before the Council's ruling executive tomorrow.

Today one leading councillor said it was vital the plan won support - in order to tackle the city's antiquated road system.

The plan outlines the areas where Bradford feels it needs to spend money in order to bring its transport links up to date.

The current transport plan ends next year. The replacement will run until 2011.

It must address the key issues of accessibility, congestion, safer roads and air quality, and the provisional document has to be submitted to the Government by the end of July.

If approved on Tuesday it then has to be agreed by full Council later this month. Each of the other West Yorkshire authorities - Leeds, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield - also have to approve it.

The Department for Transport will then look at the West Yorkshire proposals and award funding for the next five years based on how well it thinks the key issues have been addressed.

Recent consultations within the Bradford district found the public's top local transport problems were congestion, long travel times and the state of roads, cycle lanes and pavements.

The paper outlines three major Bradford schemes during the lifetime of the plan, they are:

l the major masterplan proposals for the city centre

l the major masterplan proposals for Airedale

l improvements to the city's western outer ring road.

However, the plan admits that the district's road capacity will not be able to keep up with demand, and so includes proposals aimed at trying to coax more people on to public transport.

Road casualties, road maintenance and bridge strengthening are included in the document, which is seen as being among the most important the Council and its partner authorities must approve.

Councillor Anne Hawkesworth, Bradford Council's executive member for the environment, said many expert groups have been involved in drawing up the plan.

"There has been a lot of negotiation with the likes of Metro because there is a strong requirement for public transport in this document," she said.

"We do hope the Government will accept Bradford has antiquated roads laid out in Victorian times and our junctions need to be brought up to the 21st century."