Bradford Railway Station: Axed Plans For New Travel Hub Reconsidered
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the sub-heading.
Plans for a new railway station in Bradford will be reconsidered after the government previously scrapped them.
These paragraphs outline how the government has changed its mind.
Former Transport Secretary Grant Shapps cancelled the plan for Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR), a brand new line serving the city, in November 2021.
The government has said an updated business case for the project was expected later this year.
West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin welcomed the news but criticised the “dither and delay”.
When the Integrated Rail Plan (IRP) was unveiled in 2021, it included cutting much of HS2’s eastern leg and scaling back NPR, including plans for a new station and line in Bradford.
The announcement that the government would now reconsider plans was made in the Department for Transport’s (DfT) response to the Transport Select Committee’s report on the IRP.
The committee had argued that the department had not properly tested alternative options to its proposals and had left out analysis of wider economic “levelling up” impacts of different options for NPR.
But there are no details yet.
Do We Know Anything?
The new station has been proposed to be built on the site of the current St. James Wholesale Market In Bradford.
This OpenRailwayMap shows the route of the railway between Leeds and Bradford Interchange stations, which runs via New Pudsey station.
Note.
- Leeds is to the East.
- Bradford Interchange station is in the North-West corner of the map.
- The yellow line across the map is the railway between Leeds and Bradford Interchange stations.
- St. James Wholesale Market is the rectangular building towards the top of the map in the middle.
- The dotted line going through the market is a disused goods line.
It is not obvious how the station will be connected to the rail network.
The Anonymous Widower 
In view of Sunak’s recent Tory Conference commitment to a new station for Bradford your post takes on more relevance.
You’d have to assume that any rapid service from Manchester to Bradford has to go from Piccadilly rather than Victoria and goes via Huddersfield, Deighton, Brighouse, Halifax, Low Moor, using the line that approaches the current Bradford Interchange. You could incidentally speed up services by reinstating an old line between Brighouse and Low Moor that once bypassed Halifax. To approach the western side of the proposed St James site a chord would have to be created linking the site and the current railway entering Bradford Interchange Station. Whether there is any need to create a cross town connection to Forster Square so improving routes from Halifax towards the Leeds – Settle – Carlisle line is debatable.
Comment by fammorris | October 20, 2023 |
I went up to Bradford to see the proposal for the electrolyser, which seems excellent. I talked to a Labour Councillor, who was in favour and he also said that most councillors of all parties liked the proposals for a station at St. James. He did say, that a lot of the area is owned by the Council and many of the buildings are poor.
Comment by AnonW | October 20, 2023 |
Yes, looking at Google Streetview the whole area seems to be made up of light industrial buildings which you’d anticipate were on short term tenures. If the new station is built on the St. James location the existing Exchange site would presumably be wripe for redevelopment.
Comment by fammorris | October 20, 2023 |