West Leeds residents have reacted with anger on social media after Pudsey councillor Richard Lewis said Leeds doesn’t have a problem with transport.
Cllr Lewis, who is the executive member for regeneration, transport and planning at Leeds City Council, told the Yorkshire Evening Post:
“We don’t actually have a transport problem. Traffic moves relatively easy along Leeds at peak times. We are not in a terrible place at the moment but we want to be better.”
He was responding to calls from Leeds North West MP Greg Mulholland for a mass transit transport scheme to be funded from the £173.5 million allocated to Leeds by the government for the scrapped trolleybus scheme. The trolleybus would have run from north west Leeds through to Middleton in the south.
Cllr Lewis’s comments come as Leeds Council concludes a city-wide public consultation on how best to use the money. Cllr Lewis attended an angry public meeting into problems with bus services in his Pudsey ward last month.
There was a hostile reaction to his comments on social networking site Twitter over the weekend. Some of the comments include:
What do you think? Does Leeds have a traffic problem. Have your say in the comments below.
These comments from the councillor are gobsmacking? Seriously? He wants to try commuting into Leeds from Pudsey every day via public transport. Seriously, how detached can he be from reality???
i stopped listening to this idiot years ago
Cllr Lewis ought to try Kirkstall Road at rush hour before he makes silly comments to the press
There is a much greater traffic problem since the white elephant that is the Cycle Super Highway has been forced upon the taxpaying public of Leeds and Bradford. Creating dangerous areas at junctions, bus stops, footpaths and obstructions on the highways , narrowing lanes and crazy crossings. The £40+ millions of pounds cost for what must only be a minute percentage of the public is a joke and shows that the Council can spend money which is clearly not in the interest of the majority of their public !
This waste of money must be monitored for use and someone should be held acciuntable
He obviously doesn’t travel in the morning rush hour where no cars are ‘rushing’ anywhere but sat bumper to bumper. Followed by the same experience in the tea time ‘Rush’ home.
Clearly Mr Lewis has lost it. He should resign from the council forthwith and seek medical help.
You only have to follow the bus company Twitter accounts and the travel accounts to see that there are serious issues. That these issues are a daily event and that it’s so bad you can’t trust the bus timetables. Not having a reliable transport system is bad for individuals and the city in so many ways, including in economic terms.
To say Leeds does not have a traffic problem must be the joke of the century.The third polluted city in the UK.The cycle lane that has restricted traffic passing stopped busses in a number of locations.Millions wasted on tram and rapid transport studies.The situation is not going to go away and the council has just ignored the issue of traffic volumes increasing.A few new railway stations will not solve the problem.