Ossett - Transport

Transport

The Romans constructed a road from Halifax to Wakefield, this road became a turnpike road in 1741, its route is roughly similar to the modern day Dewsbury Road. Streetside post office is a reminder of the Roman origins of the road. The M1 motorway between Junctions 40 and 42 to the east of Ossett was opened in April 1967. The stretch from junction 38 to 40 was opened in October 1968. The Highways Agency have plans to widen the M1 to 4 lanes between Chesterfield and Leeds. In 2004 a bus station was opened in the town built by the West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive replacing an earlier bus station constructed in the 1970s.

The railways arrived in Ossett in 1862 when the Bradford, Wakefield & Leeds Railway company opened a branch line to Flushdyke. The line was extended to Ossett in 1864 and then onto Dewsbury and Batley. Ossett Station, located roughly where Southdale Gardens now is, was opened in 1889 by the Great Northern Railway. The line ran underneath Station Road and the bump in the road today is the only reminder of the bridge that used to exist there until its removal in the 1980s. The station closed in 1964. The town was close to four other railway stations: Chickenley Heath closed in 1911, Earlsheaton in 1953, Flushdyke closed in 1941 and Horbury & Ossett in 1970. It is now the largest town in Yorkshire and one of the largest towns in Britain without a railway station. Railway sidings and yards are still to be found at the old Horbury & Ossett Station site and Healey Mills Marshalling Yard where Queen Elizabeth II spent a night aboard the royal train during her 1977 Silver Jubilee tour.

In June 2009, the Association of Train Operating Companies proposed Ossett, as one of seven English towns with a strong business case for the location of a new railway station. It is likely that an unmanned station would be erected at Healey Mills.