Only a few houses away from disaster...

With over 14,000 cars now passing through Mirfield each day (Highways Agency road counts) residents are becoming increasingly concerned that Mirfield needs the right investment in infrastructure and a balanced view on housing development. Infrastructure must be created at the same time or even before the housing is built.

Our roads

Mirfield is ideally located between three major roadways and significant standing traffic in peak times. The town is positioned between two areas of concern with regards to the monitoring of air quality; Scout Hill and the Bradley/Cooper Bridge Intersection.

The 2024 Kirklees Air Quality Annual Status Report states that for the Mirfield area, there were no exceedances of regulated pollutants between 2020 and 2023.
Nonetheless, the Kirklees website continues to state that the main sources of air quality issues in the area remain road traffic emissions (particularly NO₂, PM10, and PM2.5) across the district.
In addition, Kirklees has declared several Air Quality Management Areas (AQMAs) along corridors of heavy traffic (including the A62 / Bradley Road junction) to target areas where nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) levels are known to be problematic.

Flood risk and environmental factors

In 2015 Mirfield experienced the worst flooding in over 20 years with many businesses and homes becoming water damaged and needing evacuating. A local team are looking into why this happened and what we can do to help it in the future. One of the main reasons this happened is because of the lack of green space available around Mirfield to absorb some of the water.

The patient list at the local health centre is now at capacity and the existing site is fully developed.

Further population pressure on the already stretched facility will necessitate the building of a new health centre on a new site.

Schools

Mirfield schools are fully subscribed and will be unable to cope with additional demands placed on those by large developments. Children living on new developments would have to be taken to schools further afield, which will add to traffic at school times as they seek to leave the area, putting a further burden on roads.

Traffic

The roads around Mirfield are more or less unchanged since the 1950’s and are now suffering as a result. They are unable to cope with the large increase in traffic volumes and simply do not have the capacity. There is extreme congestion at every exit point.

What to do next

If you live in Mirfield and feel passionate about these topics and have some expertise on any of these areas, we want to hear from you.