Bradford Council has been successful in bidding for more than £2.6 million to pay for traffic jam-busting improvements on the busy Canal Road corridor.

The cash award announced by the Department for Transport yesterday gives the go-ahead for a £3.6 million scheme to improve the junction of Canal Road and Stanley Road, where a new stretch of dual carriageway will be built.

The remaining cash will be provided by the Council from cash it has set aside as support funding for such bids for strategic infrastructure. Most of the land needed is already owned by the Council.

The scheme, which is funded by the DfT’s national Local Pinch Point Fund, will involve creating a short length of dual carriageway on Canal Road and introducing traffic signals at the Stanley Road junction to improve traffic flow on Canal Road and discourage ‘rat running’ through Bolton Woods.

It will also be the first phase of a wider improvement of the Canal Road corridor that is likely to be funded from the West Yorkshire Plus Transport Fund which is now being developed.

Councillor Val Slater, Bradford Council’s portfolio holder for housing, planning and transport, said: “This is excellent news and the result of a lot of hard work by the Council and its partners.

“The scheme will bring significant transport benefits to this strategic corridor and also help in the delivery of the Canal Road Masterplan.”

The works in Canal Road are set to start in the middle of next year and expected to be completed by summer 2015.

All five West Yorkshire councils have schemes supported from the fund, with improvements at Thornbury Barracks in Leeds and Hipperholme crossroads in Calderdale also bringing benefits to Bradford residents and businesses, as both locations are on major routes to and from the district.