A stretch of the A62 is to be dug up and resurfaced next month at a cost of £1.6 million – just three years before Kirklees Council plans to rip it up again.

Seven weeks of disruption will be caused from Monday October 11 as Kirklees Council resurfaces Leeds Road from the junction with Bradley Road down to Cooper Bridge.

The area to be resurfaced includes underneath the railway bridge where it regularly floods during heavy rain.

The council, however, is currently working on a major £77 million scheme, known as the A62 to Cooper Bridge Corridor Improvement Scheme, which involves major reconstruction work from Cooper Bridge to the Bradley traffic lights and beyond.

That major scheme, to be funded by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, could start as early as 2024.

READ MORE: This is the latest on what’s planned for the A62 Leeds Road at Bradley

At a meeting of the Kirklees Council Cabinet Clr Martyn Bolt (Con, Mirfield) quizzed council leader Shabir Pandor about why taxpayers’ money was being spent now on a road that would be dug up in just a few years’ time.

Clr Bolt said that under the Roads & Street Works Act roads should not be dug up again within five years of being laid.

“It is bad enough when this is done by a utility company but this is by the council,” he said. “Is it worth spending £1.6 million on this road when there is a £77 million scheme to come in 2024? Don’t we have other roads in Kirklees where this money could be better spent?”

Clr Pandor said funding for the October scheme came from the Department for Transport. It should have been completed in 2019 but was postponed because of the pandemic.

Clr Pandor said the future Cooper Bridge scheme had not been decided and the road needed resurfacing now.

“The Department for Transport is right in funding this road and anything we do in the future will be complementary,” he added.