A road at Dewsbury in West Yorkshire is to be closed for ten weeks from Monday 8 April for work to take place in connection with the Transpennine Route Upgrade (TRU).
Ravensthorpe Road in Dewsbury will be closed to vehicles from Veolia Dewsbury Service Centre to 153 Ravensthorpe Road, but access to Veolia will remain open and pedestrians can continue to use the road.
The closure will enable Yorkshire Water to complete connections to a water main underneath the road, which in turn will allow a new road layout and bridge to be constructed.
Once that has been completed, Ravensthorpe railway station will be moved to a new location about 300 metres west of its current position, which will allow trains to and from Wakefield to stop there.
I would like to thank everybody for their support and understanding while this work takes place.
Paul Sumner, senior sponsor on Transpennine Route Upgrade
At the same time as the Yorkshire Water work, Northern Power Grid will be working in the area to connect high-voltage cables.
Warning signs will be erected from Friday 29 March, and there will be signposted diversion routes for road traffic.
Work will take place from 8 am to 6 pm Mondays to Fridays and from 8 am to 1 pm on Saturdays, with staff on-site for 30 minutes before and after each shift for preparation and clear-up work. No work will take place on Sundays.
Elsewhere in Dewsbury, a range of work will affect traffic travelling along Fall Lane, from Tuesday 2 April.
Once the Transpennine Route Upgrade has been completed, there will be more trains to run between Manchester, Huddersfield, Leeds and York, with up to six fast services every hour between Leeds and Manchester and up to two stopping services for local trains. The fastest journey times between Manchester and York will be reduced to 63-66 minutes, and to 41-42 minutes between Manchester and Leeds.
While carrying out archaeological work before the current work started, a possible historic small settlement that could date back to Roman times was found.
We know that closing roads, bridleways or public footpaths, especially ones like Ravensthorpe Road that are heavily relied on by the local community, is far from ideal and I would like to thank everybody for their support and understanding while this work takes place.
As part of the ongoing upgrades being completed by TRU, Ravensthorpe Station will be relocated approximately 300m West of its current position, providing the opportunity for trains going to or from Wakefield to call at the station. Additionally, a new forecourt with blue badge spaces, drop off point and step free access will be built.
Unfortunately, for us to achieve this, it does mean that there will be occasions when road closures need to be implemented. When this occurs, we ll always do our best to carefully plan the work so that we can re-open it at the earliest opportunity.
Paul Sumner, senior sponsor on Transpennine Route Upgrade
Responses
That’s what we are having at the moment with diversion and very busy when we are caring for our service users and getting to them late. We’re losing time and adding more miles that were not getting paid for. This is from Mirfield and Thornhill and call amalgamated so it’s backwards and forwards at tea call.
Wish HS2 took the same caring approach. They seem to close roads to show how important they are with little concern for the communities affected. But wait. We have a new play area in Lichfield and lots of glossy leaflets
It might have been helpful if you had added a map to show exactly where the works were taking place, just a thought for those people who travel through and not exactly live in the area.