RURAL areas like Silsden and the Worth Valley are losing out to towns when road repairs cash is shared out, claims a councillor.

Adrian Naylor believes Bradford Council’s policy on how to distribute its budget unfairly discriminates against outlying areas.

Cllr Naylor, who sits on both Bradford and Silsden councils, claims the current policy of focusing repairs on major roads means that the bulk of the cash will always go to urban areas.

Bradford Council has a budget of £5.37 million in the 2018/19 financial year to spend on capital maintenance of the district’s entire road network.

The bulk will be spent on A, B and C roads, with just £1.25 million remaining for the district’s non-classified roads – equating to £250,000 for the Keighley constituency.

The council’s Keighley Area Committee last week approved 17 repair schemes totalling £251,000 in urban and rural parts of Keighley and Ilkley.

Cllr Naylor said: “By saying roads in the urban areas are the most heavily used, it is discriminating against rural areas where there might be only one road for people to get somewhere.

“We have a lot of roads in the rural areas and they’re deteriorating. As they deteriorate the cost of repairing them becomes more. The problem is classified roads are the ones in the urban areas and their repairs budget is under the direct control of the council’s executive. The council has apportioned off a pittance to each area committee.”

Cllr Naylor said the reserve list for non-classified road repairs – with around 50 schemes totalling more than £1 million in Keighley alone – included schemes costing up to £75,000 each.

The committee agreed cash for road repairs over the next 12 months in Keighley on Fell Lane, Haincliffe Road, Dawson Place, Woodhouse Way, Whinfield Close and Thwaites Brow Road.

Also on the approved list: Slippery Ford Lane; Broadhead Lane, Oakworth; Greystones Lane/Coppy Lane, Laycock; Grange Road, Riddlesden; Sawood Lane, Oxenhope; Street Lane, Morton; Walker Lane, Silsden Moor; St John’s Street, Silsden.

A Bradford Council spokesman said the maintenance of A, B and C roads needed to be the highest priority as they carried the most traffic.

She said the highway network was made up of A roads (223 km urban, 61km rural), B roads (53km urban, 25km rural), C roads (59 km each urban and rural) and non-classified roads (1,245 urban and 217km rural).

She added: “Whilst officers recommend a priority list of schemes, ward councillors can and often do make substitutions from the ‘reserve’ list and the amount spent between wards on each classification of road tends to balance out over a number of years depending on the size of individual projects.”