Newton Bar roundabout improvement scheme on course to be completed by September

Matthew Morley, Wakefield Council’s cabinet member for highways, said the multi-million pound scheme is due to be opened in two months.

Senior councillors have acknowledged that the public are “frustrated” over the length of time the project is taking.

Earlier this year, the scheme received a £1m injection as the cost of the work being carried out at one of the city’s busiest junctions increased due to rising building costs.

The A650 roundabout to the north of the city centre is being redeveloped with new pedestrian crossings, traffic lights, cycling lanes and carriageways.

The total cost of the project is expected to be £9.7m.

In a report to councillors, Coun Morley said “significant progress has been made in the last couple of months”.

Partial closures of the roundabout are expected during the summer holiday period before the scheme is expected to be opened by mid September.

In March, cabinet agreed to accept £500,000 of West Yorkshire Combined Authority funding as well as matching the sum from the council’s highways budget.

Coun Matthew Morley said at the time: “When the funding was put in place for Newton Bar, pre-pandemic in 2018, I don’t think any of us foresaw what was coming with the financial crisis and rising costs of raw materials.

“That being said, Newton Bar is on the ground, we are delivering it, we are building it and we can’t just let leave it there and let the money run out.

“The scheme is still a good value-for-money scheme, improving local infrastructure.”

Coun Morley added: “We have tried to do it as quickly as possible.

“People have asked the question ‘why have you started all over the place on that scheme?’

“Well, if we didn’t, we would still be doing it for my 90th birthday.”