A GRANT of almost £400,000 is being given to pay for a feasibility study to improve the ring road from Horsforth roundabout to Pudsey.

The money, from the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, will fund a study looking at the expansion or upgrade of the Leeds Northern Outer Ring Road between Dawsons Corner and Horsforth Roundabout.

The £392,000 grant has been welcomed by Horsforth ward councillors.

Cllr Jonathon Taylor said: “It has long been known that this section of the ring road is a bottleneck in the west of Leeds. This feasibility study should illustrate just how bad that is and what can be done to improve traffic flow through the ward.”

He added: “The study opens the conversation as to what improvements we want to see including the options for active travel such as walking and cycling.”

Cllr Jackie Shemilt added: “Rush hour on this stretch of road seems to last most of the day. We need this study to determine what options are available and where we go from here. We have to ensure that solutions are compatible with the Climate Emergency, so it is right that we should have a number of options to evaluate at the end of this study.”

Cllr Dawn Collins said: “The Climate Emergency we are now in means that doing nothing is no longer an option – we cannot have long queues of traffic all sat with engines running going nowhere.”

She added: “Local communities are being blighted with rat-running by motorists trying to avoid hold-ups on the ring road.”

The grant will fund a feasibility study looking at what options might be available to increase capacity on this stretch of the ring road, which should reduce congestion and make journey times faster for motorists and lead to more reliable bus times.

The feasibility study stage is expected to conclude next May.

Leeds City Council’s Executive Board approved a £0.392m grant from WYCA at it’s meeting on November 25.

An report to update on the council’s capital programme for 2019/2020 said: “The Council continues to deliver significant capital investment across the city which will provide improved facilities and infrastructure and also support the Leeds economy, whilst ensuring the impact on debt costs within the revenue budget is managed. “

Last year a scheme to ease congestion on the ring road at Horsforth was scrapped after two days of chaos and massive tailbacks.

Motorists reported being stuck in stationary traffic for up to an hour, and many drivers had at least 45 minutes added to their journey times after the introduction of the “disastrous” trial traffic management measures.

Leeds City Council apologised for the disruption and said they would continue to work to find an acceptable way to ease congestion.