Work to improve three town centre traffic-jam hotspots in Keighley is likely to be complete by the summer.

Bradford Council is adapting Church Street, Cavendish Street and the West Lane/Oakworth Road junction.

The improvements were recently approved by Keighley Area Committee, the council's local decision making body.

Comments are being invited from the public and local businesses, which could lead to minor changes.

Area committee chairman Andrew Mallinson believed the improvements would help relieve town centre congestion.

But he said minor tweaks were not enough and called for a thorough traffic survey of the whole Keighley area.

Cllr Mallinson, also chairman of Keighley Transport Forum, said the Airedale Partnership had been asked to provide £50,000 for a survey.

He said: "If we are to improve transport links between Bradford and Silsden, then Keighley has got to be able to get vehicles in and out.

"We roughly know the number of vehicles, now we need to know where they come from and are going to."

Cllr Mallinson believed the final solution would have to be a bypass, but admitted there would be difficulty finding a suitable route.

Work has already begun on the first of the three latest improvements, which were all put forward by the Transport Forum.

Contractors are to resume work this month narrowing Cavendish Street at the pedestrian crossing outside Reid's bookshop.

Earlier plans to split the crossing with a traffic island were scrapped because up to 1,600 people cross each hour.

Right-hand turns will be banned from Cavendish Street into Lawkholme Lane, and hatched yellow boxes painted on the road.

The exit from West Lane into Oakworth Road is to be made left-turn only, with yellow hatching in Oakworth Road. Cllr Mallinson hopes this will avoid morning rush-hour snarl-ups where turning vehicles block traffic on busy Oakworth Road.

Minor changes have been made after Keighley and District Travel said its buses would not be able to access its depot via Suresnes Road.

The third change will see one-way traffic in Church Street -- next to Church Green -- switching direction.

The aim is to speed up traffic by removing the right-hand turn into Church Street at the North Street junction.

Cllr Mallinson said the Church Street work would tie-in with new traffic lights planned for the South Street junction with Damside and Beck Street.

Another Transport Forum suggestion, banning right turns from Hard Ings Road into Lawkholme Lane, has been put on hold.

Work cannot be done until responsibility for Hard Ings -- taken over by the Government's Highways Agency -- is returned to Bradford Council.

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