The value of a cross-Bradford rail link in connecting city - Yorkshire Post Letters

I was interested to read the announcement of a plan for a new Bradford station on June 22 by Bradford Council on its website. The plan is to locate the new station on the site of the current St James’s Wholesale Market which is not exactly in the city centre.

A little knowledge of the railway history of Bradford should make you think twice about locating a new station near the site of the first Bradford station which was soon closed as it was too far out of the town centre. It was replaced by extending the line into Bradford Exchange station. Many years later Exchange was replaced by Bradford Interchange.

In my view, over many years, senior officers of Bradford Council have lacked ambition for Bradford and since 1974 the wider metropolitan district.

This lack of ambition has too often been accepted by the political leaders of all the political parties represented on Bradford Council.

They have often failed to rigorously scrutinise officer proposals and plans and hold officers accountable when their plans failed to deliver what they claimed would be achieved.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to build a Cross Bradford heavy rail link between Bradford Interchange and Forster Square and link a future Northern Powerhouse Rail line into this and then take it by a new yet to be announced line to Leeds?

This could enable direct trains from the Skipton and Ilkley line to Halifax and the Calder Valley Line to Hebden Bridge and beyond to Blackpool, Preston, Manchester and Chester. It could also provide direct trains to Huddersfield and Wakefield.

Grand Central trains to London could be extended to Skipton, Keighley, Shipley and Ilkley. The Bradford to Leeds line through New Pudsey could be change into a tram system as part of the proposed West Yorkshire Mass Transport system.

A cross-Bradford heavy rail link could also reduce the pressure on the overcapacity of Leeds City Station

For transparency I’d like to make it clear that for 22 years until 2021 when I retired I was a Councillor for Tong Ward in Bradford.