A new road being finished within the next few weeks has been described

by engineers as the launch pad to a cleaner city

The jigsaw being put together in the £20 million Connecting the City project is shaping a new road pattern which will discourage traffic coming through the city and persuade drivers to use the ring road.

The new road which will play a major part is already partly constructed - and temporarily called New Cheapside.

It will be completed and permanently christened New Kirkgate once the major trench work near the Midland Hotel comes to an end this month.

And the end result will be a 200 metre stretch from outside the Midland Hotel linking into Bolton Road with traffic diverted over the new bridge deck.

At the same time the leg of Cheapside from Market Street to Forster Square will close permanently and Forster Square will be closed to circulatory traffic from Cheapside to Church Bank.

Mark Wood, project manager for Mowlem plc, main contractors working with Bradford Council on the scheme, said: "This is a very important stage of the project which is going to mean big changes for motorists and get them into the habit of how it is going to be in the future.

"It is the birth of a cleaner and less polluted city and the ring road will be the access to the city rather than across it."

Traffic-locked Petergate will eventually close to make way for the £300 million Broadway shopping scheme but no date has yet been given.

But Mr Wood said: "Even before the road is shut the things we are doing now are going to drastically reduce the traffic."

Drivers are also being warned that for one of the first times since it was built, the ring road will be fully closed to traffic for about two weeks from March 21 during the night.

Diversions are being arranged during the closure of the route between the Canal Road-Shipley Airedale road junction to Croft Street.

During the closure ten gantries will be removed from the road and cleaned. They will be returned bearing signs about the new road network.

Mowlem public liaison officer Martin Thornton said: "Everything is going well and moving forward. It is a major civil engineering project and the level of co-ordination and co-operation has been excellent throughout."

The Connecting the City project is preparing the infrastructure for the vast shopping centre recently taken over by Westfield, the world's biggest retail centre operator.

The contract to demolish properties to clear the site has not yet been awarded by Westfield.