Campaigners have welcomed moves to secure a stretch of land in Bradford which would enable a cycle route to be completed.

Bradford Council's Executive Committee will be asked to apply for a compulsory purchase order on the land at the former Transperience Discovery Park in Low Moor.

It is the last part of land the Council needs to buy to ensure the Bradford section of national cycle route 66 can be finished. Pam Ashton, chairman of the Bradford Cycle Action Group, said the sale of the land was vital. "We welcome this because I have been in situations before where one section can hold up all the others," she said.

Keith Thomson, chairman of the Council's environment overview and scrutiny committee, said they backed the proposal which would be taken to executive committee on February 18.

"We have an agreement with the owners of the old Transperience site that we can use part of the land," he said. But to hasten the sale - because their development proposals are on a different scale to ours and might take longer - we seek a compulsory purchase order which I understand they are quite willing to enter into."

The Bradford route will cost £850,000 to build and will link the Spen Valley cycleway with a path at the Leeds-Liverpool Canal in Shipley which links with Leeds.

It would pass from Low Moor, under the M606, past Bierley Woods, through Bowling Cemetery, into West Bowling and on to the heart of the city and Centenary Square. The Bradford route is due for completion in 2006 but Councillor Thomson, a keen cyclist, had called for an update from project officials because he believed progress was too slow.

"One of our roles is to encourage them to be faster," he said. "By putting cycleways in there will be less people in cars and it is more healthy."

The committee passed a recommendation to the executive to ensure the funding in the local transport plan ensures the route can be completed.