Thousands of square metres of earth being dug up from Bradford’s Broadway development will eventually be used to create a road junction and cycleway between Bradford and Shipley.

Work at the site of the future shopping centre re-started before Christmas, and partly involves the digging up of the Bradford Urban Garden, created after the project stalled.

Bradford Council has now earmarked an area of its land near Tyersal where the earth and materials can be stored until it can be re-used, saving the Council almost £120,000 in landfill fees.

The site of a former car park on Parry Lane is subject of a planning application submitted by the Council for the storage of up to 4,100 square metres of material for up to 12 months. The site already has permission for a recycling centre, and good access to road networks.

The material has been earmarked for two upcoming projects, the Canal Road/Stanley Road junction improvement scheme and the Canal Road greenway cycle route scheme.

Although both schemes have been in the planning stages for some time, neither will have progressed enough to use the material until later this year, and so a storage site needed to be found.

A Council report into the proposals says that the material will include 1,100 square metres of “graded recycled general fill” and 3,000 square metres of soil.

Originally the material was to be used to restore the Sugden End Landfill, and for the Wilson Road landfill footpath scheme.

But with the Broadway re-start date delayed, the footpath scheme has been finished and the material has been deemed too contaminated to be used to restore a landfill site.

It adds: “It will be environmentally and economically advantageous to the Council to stockpile this material rather than disposing of it to landfill.

“Tipping charges alone will be in the region of £84,000. To import this quantity of material to the sites would be in the region of £34,000.”

If approved the material will be transported from the Broadway site by up to 20 round trips a day for around five weeks.

A decision will be made on the Parry Lane application in April.