Plans to create a new entrance and exit to remove a bottleneck in the car park at the Great Northern Retail Park in Huddersfield are still on the drawing board – 12 months on.

Kirklees Council submitted a planning application in October last year aimed at cutting exit queues at peak times. However, the plans still haven’t been approved.

For more than five years shoppers have complained about long queues to leave the retail park at busy times such as weekends, Christmas and bank holidays.

In the run-up to Christmas queues at the retail park – which has stores including Next, The Range, Currys PC World and TK Maxx – have already started to build.

The changes would see a new entrance created at the bottom of Lower Fitzwilliam Street taking cars into the retail park in front of the existing TUI store. A new exit would be created out onto the A62 Leeds Road.

The proposed new entrance off Lower Fitzwilliam Street can be seen on the right, with the new exit onto Leeds Road on the left

The proposed changes are part of the £8 million A62 Leeds Road Smart Corridor scheme which will also remove the existing gyratory at the junction of Lower Fitzwilliam Street and Gasworks Street.

The gyratory will be replaced with a series of signal-controlled junctions and there will also be a cycle lane and improved landscaping.

Work had been due to start in February 2021 but with the plans still awaiting approval it is not known when the scheme, funded mainly by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, will start.

The gyratory will go

A Kirklees Council spokesman said: “Since the original application, concerns were raised by the council’s Highways Development Management service, and amended plans are currently being drawn up.

“Once these plans have been reviewed and we are satisfied that all concerns have been properly addressed, they will be approved.”