THE boss of one of Bradford’s longest-running businesses has accused Bradford Council of not giving local firms a fair hearing over a planned new cycle path.

Council bosses are poised to push ahead with plans to take the £3m CityConnect2 cycle lane along Valley Road, after overruling an area committee’s call for other routes to be investigated.

But Paul Jaggar, managing director of builder’s merchant Uriah Woodhead and Sons, said the Council’s plans to make part of the street one-way to traffic would be “devastating” to his business.

Mr Jaggar said the majority of his customers came in from the north of the site, so a decision to block traffic from this direction would deal a huge blow to his business, which has been trading for 151 years and employs 50 people.

He said it was also making him rethink a separate £1.2m investment plan to build new business units on land nearby.

Mr Jaggar said the Council had been “shambolic” in its handling of the cycle path plans, saying the authority was rushing through a decision because it already had a contractor lined up.

He said: “It’s gone out to tender, for crying out loud, and it’s not even been approved.

“They’ve done all this in advance of getting approval. The price is only guaranteed for 90 days and that’s coming to an end.”

Trevor Iles of cleaning suppliers Trevor Iles Ltd, also of Valley Road, said the situation was “disappointing”.

His firm employs 60 people and he said they feared customers would not travel around a one-way system to call in to their site.

Council bosses have already secured a preferred bidder for the construction of the cycle path, being funded by £3m from the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, a scrutiny committee heard this week.

Transport bosses say it will provide a much-needed extension to the Canal Road Greenway, creating a traffic-free route from Shipley to Bradford.

But changes to the roads needed approval from the Council’s Bradford East Area Committee, which earlier this month refused to back the scheme in its current form over concerns about safety, the attractiveness of the route and the impact on local businesses.

Instead, the committee asked for officers to look into taking the route along nearby green space instead.

But this decision was called-in for examination by the environment scrutiny committee, amid fears that delays could jeopardise the project.

Now the Executive member for regeneration, Councillor Alex Ross-Shaw, has taken the rare step of taking the decision away from the Bradford East Area Committee and having the Executive decide on the matter instead.

He said: “The indecision of the Liberal Democrat councillors on the area committee is irresponsible and has put the funding for this new cycling route at risk. I’m therefore asking officers to bring this decision to the Executive so that we can consider the cycle route ourselves. £3m of external funding is at stake so it’s important that a decision is made.”

Cllr Ross-Shaw (Lab, Windhill and Wrose) said they had already met with businesses to hear their concerns and had been able to make some alterations to the plans.

He added: “I’m more than happy to meet Uriah Woodheads too and I’ll be contacting them myself to invite them in to City Hall and we can go over the plans in more detail. Their concerns have been heard by our officers during the scheme’s development and at two meetings held in public and we’ll hear them again when the proposals come to the Executive in September.”

Area committee chairman, Councillor Rachel Sunderland (Lib Dem, Bolton and Undercliffe), reacted angrily to the latest twist.

She refuted the claim that the funding was at risk and denied accusations of indecision.

Cllr Sunderland said the Valley Road route would have cyclists travelling between HGVs on one side and a crumbling, privately-owned stone wall on the other, which the Council could not repair.

She said: “They’re determined to force this through, but I stand by my concerns.”

A spokesman for the West Yorkshire Combined Authority said there had been a condition on the funding that work had to start by March 2018, but that “discussions were ongoing at the moment” to try to extend this.

The Executive will consider the matter when it meets on September 12.