Exclusive: Transport revolution promised in £1.4bn shake-up

A list of more than 30 major projects across West Yorkshire and York has been drawn up for the coming decade including a raft of station and city centre improvements, new link roads and bypasses in Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield, a bus interchange for York, a new carriageway to Leeds-Bradford Airport and an extra motorway junction to relieve congestion on the M62.

These schemes alone are forecast to create 20,000 new jobs by helping existing firms to expand, while opening up huge new tracts of land for housing, commercial and industrial developments.

At the same time, preparatory work will begin on plans for several even larger-scale projects which transport bosses say will “transform” the regional economy.

These include the electrification of all major rail routes across Yorkshire, an upgrade of the region’s entire motorway network, the extension of the new Leeds trolley-bus network out to other towns and cities in West Yorkshire, massively improved rail links for Bradford, and a long called-for railway to Leeds Bradford Airport.

“An immediate priority for economic recovery and growth is reducing congestion and overcrowding on the transport network,” said Bradford Council leader David Green. “Better transport links mean more investment in the area and more jobs.”

“Taken together, I think this could be the biggest change in over 100 years,” said Leeds Council leader Keith Wakefield.

The massive investment package is the first tangible benefit of the Leeds city region’s much-vaunted ‘City Deal’, a package of new devolved powers and funding agreed between local council leaders and the Government last summer.

Under the terms of the agreement, West Yorkshire’s five councils will join together with York to pool resources for a new shared transport fund totalling £1bn over 10 years.

Around a quarter of the money will come from Government, with the rest being found by the councils themselves – potentially via a small levy on the council tax bill of every household in the city region.

The £1bn fund will enable the upgrade of every major railway station in the county, along with a raft of individual city centre road, junction and bus lane improvements. Two new bypasses and two new link roads will be built in Wakefield, along with one in south-east Bradford, a new carriageway out to the Aire Valley enterprise zone and another to Leeds Bradford Airport.

New park-and-ride sites will be built at Leeds and York, along with the addition of 2,000 extra parking spaces at existing railway stations. A new junction ‘24a’ would be built on the M62 to tackle congestion, and a third trolleybus line constructed from Leeds city centre out to the Aire Valley.

York would also get a new transport interchange, including a new bus station.

Over the longer term, the authorities hope to raise a further £400m through a revolutionary ‘earn-back’ scheme currently being trialled in Greater Manchester, whereby the Government allows them to keep a portion of the additional tax revenues which their investment programme brings in to the Treasury as the local economy expands.

That money will be ploughed straight back into the transport fund to spend on further projects beyond 2020.

Coun Peter Box, the leader of Wakefield Council, said: “By working on a county-wide basis, the significant investment will really improve the economic prospects for current businesses, attract more businesses to locate here, and encourage people to live in the region rather than take their knowledge and income elsewhere.”

Wakefield Council will be the first council to approve the plans when its ruling Cabinet meets tomorrow afternoon. Leeds, Bradford, York, Kirklees and Calderdale are expected to follow over the coming weeks.

The six councils are also pushing forward with plans to create a new ‘super-council’, dubbed West Yorkshire Plus. Each council will still maintain its own powers and independence, but will use the mantle of the new combined authority to make region-wide decisions over strategic issues such as transport spending.

The measures due to be agreed in West Yorkshire are likely to prove a model for similar plans in South Yorkshire and in East Yorkshire, where negotiations are ongoing about a ‘Humber City Deal’ and a similar transport package.