Phase one of major works aimed at regenerating Halifax town centre have been blasted as “an absolute disaster” by the council’s new leader.
Reform UK’s leader – and Leader of Calderdale Council – Coun Dan Sutherland and Labour group leader Coun Adam Wilkinson clashed over proposed changes to the latest phase of the scheme.
Earlier in the year the council came under fire from some businesses who said they had been hard hit by the first phase of work at the top end of town, seeing greatly reduced footfall and hitting revenue.
The project aims to make it easier to move around the town centre and also improve the public realm to encourage people to spend longer in Halifax – and spend more money there.
Reform UK won control of the council from Labour in May’s local elections, with one of the party’s pledges to address issues relating to roads.
Coun Wilkinson (Lab, Sowerby Bridge) wanted to know what conversations had been had with project funder West Yorkshire Combined Authority about proposed changes, which former councillor Kelly Thornham had also raised at September’s Cabinet meeting.
Reform has said on its social media pages that it intended to alter part of the scheme now under way, at the bottom end of town.
Ms Thornham had queried how Cabinet could justify changing a publicly-funded scheme of this scale without publishing to precise proposal and impacts including possible contract variation costs.
In a questions about WYCA matters section of a meeting of the full Calderdale Council, Coun Wilkinson also asked whether it would have been more transparent to announce changes through the council’s own social media rather than on a party page.
But Coun Sutherland (Reform UK, Illingworth and Mixenden), who in an earlier debate about adoption of the council’s new corporate plan had spoken of “businesses in tears, sacking people” because of problems in the earlier phase, said “the message you had from the public loud and clear was that the first phase was an absolute disaster.”
“It was delayed, businesses closed, and as a result traffic flows through there much worse than it did before.
“So it’s quite right we’re looking at the bottom end of town to make sure that scheme works.
“In terms of how we communicate that, we will get the word out,” he said.