Proposals to put traffic lights on a major Keighley roundabout have been revealed this week.

The £100,000 project would see the ‘signalisation’ of one of the roundabouts on the busy Hard Ings Road.

It would tie-in with plans – currently awaiting Government approval – to transform the route into a dual carriageway.

The roundabout is the middle one of three in Hard Ings Road, near the junction with Royd Way and at the end of the Silsden-Beechcliffe stretch of the Aire Valley Road.

The roundabout at the Victoria Park end of Hard Ings Road already has traffic signals.

But the scheme received a mixed reaction from key politicians involved in efforts to tackle congestion on Keighley roads.

District councillor Andrew Mallinson, a member of Keighley Town Centre Association, said it was vital any lights were designed in context with all other planned traffic schemes in the centre.

He added: “For every junction you alter there is a massive knock-on effect on every other junction in the town.

“On that roundabout, people need to be allowed to go with the flow of the traffic, otherwise it will become a bottleneck.”

But Keighley MP Kris Hopkins said: “I would always welcome investment to improve our local transport infrastructure, particularly in a location that is often very busy and is likely to get busier.”

Bradford Council put forward the new project in a report to the Keighley Area Committee listing potential road safety schemes.

The committee, which meets tonight, will be asked to approve £172,000 of work at various locations around Keighley.

The Hard Ings Road roundabout is on the reserve list, and Bradford Council this week stressed it was unlikely to be implemented before the dual carriageway scheme begins.

A spokesman added: “Govern-ment funding for the dual carriageway scheme is still being negotiated, but feasibility studies for the work will be commencing shortly, with work hopefully beginning on site in 2017.”

Graham Mitchell, the Keighley town councillor who chairs the watch and transport committee, said in his many discussions with Bradford highways officers, nobody had ever suggested traffic lights on the roundabout.

He added: “We’ve been pressing for a dual carriageway on Hard Ings Road for four years.”

Keighley Area Committee chairman, Coun Steve Pullen, said his members had to take into account casualty figures when deciding which road schemes to fund.

The committee report states there have been nine slight injuries in recent years at the roundabout, but no deaths or serious injuries.