SEVERAL Green Party councillors want West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin to pause road building schemes following a government Uturn on the matter nationally.

Leading these calls is Tong Councillor Matt Edwards. His ward has two of the largest schemes being funded by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) – Tong Valley Road and the widening of A650 at Tong Street.

Earlier this month, Green Party councillors from Bradford, Leeds and Kirklees sent a letter to the mayor asking her to announce a review of the road building schemes being funded by WYCA.

Last Wednesday, the government’s transport decarbonisation plan was published and contained a pledge to review Britain’s national £27bn road building strategy following legal action by Transport Action Network.

The Green councillors have highlighted that of the £875 million allocated as part of the West Yorkshire-plus Transport Fund, £660 million is allocated to road building programmes compared to just under £20 million to building railway stations – just a single new station across the entire county in Elland.

Cllr Edwards said: “New roads create new traffic. More traffic not only means more environment wrecking emissions being pumped into the air – it has a disastrous effect on the health of people living near these roads. This is a fact that Tracy Brabin and our Labour-run Councils in West Yorkshire can’t escape.

“My ward is going to be one of the worst-impacted by this dangerous fixation on road building and it’s people living there that are going to suffer. The streets close to Tong Street are already ranked as some of the most unhealthy in our district, largely due to air pollution. This money needs to be invested in schemes which will deliver cleaner air.

“We need a whole new approach to transport, rethinking our town and cities to make it easier for people that can to get around by public transport and scrap destructive road buildings schemes.”

Green Party Cllr Andrew Cooper, from Kirklees (Newsome Ward), added: “The Labour-led Welsh government is showing real leadership with their announcement earlier this month – and now the Tories in Westminster have been forced to rethink their plans.

“Things have changed and with the Climate Emergency Declarations our councils have made there is a responsibility to act.

“Transport Action Network and other groups are rightly challenging road building schemes in the courts and to avoid costly legal action we must show we are taking into account our environment before we commission new schemes.

“I hope Tracy Brabin will take heed of the science and reverse West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s obsession with spending hundreds of millions on environment-wrecking schemes.”

When approached about the subject, Ms Brabin declined to comment.

Meanwhile, the government’s plan to make transport climate-friendly has been described by a Bradford transport campaign as “too little too slow”.

“The Transport Decarbonisation Plan will do nothing to reduce congestion nor provide health benefits as particulates emissions will not be reduced, indeed are likely to increase. It doesn’t address the need to reduce car traffic,” said Ludi Simpson from the Bradford-Shipley Travel Alliance.

Published on Wednesday, the government plan aims to cut in half the transport carbon emissions from all transport by 2035. It says that local authorities will have to make carbon reductions a fundamental part of local transport planning.

Ludi added: “The targets won’t save us from the disastrous consequences of further man-made global warming. They are less than demanded by the Climate Change Commission which the government itself set up to advise it.’

The campaign says that local government should be given more support to implement solutions to the climate emergency. It calls for major changes to the traffic scheme that plans to increase motor traffic on Canal and Valley Roads between Bradford and Shipley.