MONEY that has previously been “devolved” to help reduce traffic accidents in areas Bradford will now be used for district wide schemes.

Bradford Council allocates its Safer Roads Budget to the district’s five area committees, which then decide how the money will be spent.

The budget for each committee is based on population size.

Seventy per cent of that allocation is earmarked for “casualty reduction” work - making roads safer, while the rest can be spent on general traffic improvement measures like installing traffic islands.

At a meeting of the Council’s Executive yesterday, members were told that due to tightening budgets, the area committees were “restricted in the scale of projects that can be prioritised.”

They also heard that casualty reduction works were “more difficult to target with specific area committees.”

Some of this money will now be “top sliced” and used to carry out district wide projects. The Executive was told that of the £778,600 available in the 2018/19 financial year, £120,000 would be used for district wide projects, with the rest divided between the area committees.

Each Area Committee will also get a sum of £50,000 dedicated to general traffic management measures.