COUNCILLORS have admitted defeat in a bid to adopt a road in Clayton after hearing it would cost almost £230,000 of taxpayers’ money to upgrade.

Members of the Bradford West Area Committee had asked council officers to provide detailed costs of adopting Thornton View Road, prompted by a 1,056-signature petition saying it was in need of urgent repair.

The 312-metre road is used predominantly by people from a junction on Pasture Lane to access the Jaamiatul Immam Muhammad Zakaria independent boarding school, Clayton Golf Club, and Horton Bank Country Park.

The authority said it was responsible for some of the land that fronted onto the road, and would therefore be responsible for a “substantial section” of the highway, said to be around 40 per cent.

John Rowley, principal engineer at Bradford Council, had told the committee in March that any bid to adopt the road would be a “misuse of public money”, but members pressed for a follow-up report.

He told the committee this week that making the road up to full adoptable standards would cost £227,608, including £101,725 on pavements, £50,865 on drainage, and £40,397 on kerbs, footways, and paved areas.

A second option of simply re-surfacing the road but to non-adoptable standard was costed at £48,530, with responsibility for the upkeep remaining with residents.

The report read: “The approximate cost of £228,000 must be funded privately using the Private Street Works code.

“However it was resolved that alternative sources of revenue be investigated to pay for the work.

“There is currently no budget to fund any private street work and the option available is to use Bradford West’s own devolved annual highway maintenance budget allocation.

“The Thornton View Road estimated cost exceeds the total budget for 2016/17.

“The use of Bradford West Area highway maintenance budget in any one year would allocate over 100 per cent of that year’s budget on an unadopted road the highway authority is not responsible for.”

Mr Rowley said: “It’s your choice, but I don’t think that would be the best use of the money.”

In a statement read to the meeting, the lead petitioners from the school said they accepted that council resources would not allow the full adoption of the road, but said they wanted to continue to work with the committee to try and make the road safer.

Councillor Sinead Engel (Lab, Clayton and Fairweather Green) said: “Drainage is one of the most important aspects, as the run-off from the road causes all sorts of trouble.

“I still believe the council does have a degree of responsibility here.

“Much of the damage to the road is caused by water. Unless we sort the drainage out, improving the surface is a waste of money.”

Mr Rowley said the more basic option of re-surfacing would not include drainage work, describing it as “make do and mend”.

Committee chairman Councillor Mohammed Amran (Lab, Heaton) said: “We could never get this road through to adoption because of the cost. It would take almost the whole budget for the district.”