Exclusive:Lord Blunkett 'absolutely staggered' by amount of delays on Yorkshire railways in research for review

Lord Blunkett was commissioned by the region’s three mayors - as part of their new collaborative White Rose Agreement - to assess Yorkshire’s rail connectivity, and make recommendations to the Government.

The meeting, on Thursday evening at York’s National Railway Museum, was said to be positive, and allowed mayors Tracy Brabin, Oliver Coppard and David Skaith to collectively make the case for more transport investment.

Speaking to The Yorkshire Post exclusively ahead of the report’s publication in May, Lord Blunkett said some of the delay figures in the region were “absolutely staggering”.

The review has revealed that Leeds station had the highest amount of time lost to delays of any station in the UK in 2023 - at 34,922 minutes which is more than 24 days.

Reading was the second worst affected station with 22,069 minutes lost, while Sheffield, York and Bradford Interchanges were all in the top 10.

Only two London stations - London Bridge and Heathrow - feature in this list, despite the capital having the 12 busiest stations in the UK.

Lord Blunkett said: “Its capacity - obviously the redevelopment of [Leeds] station and around the station is going to be vital, but it’s also about signalling and the use of technology.

“You get slow trains in front of express trains, you get people shunted into sidings, you get all kinds of timetabling problems.

“The knock on with delays and subsequent cancellations have made people’s lives a misery.

“These are staggering figures - even I was surprised and it takes a lot to surprise me.”

In the meeting, the mayors impressed on the need for investment to increase the capacity at Leeds, and also York and Sheffield.

They also made the case for a new through-station at Bradford, a mainline station at Rotherham and improving connections to the towns around Wakefield.

West Yorkshire Mayor Ms Brabin said: “Meeting with the Transport Secretary was a useful opportunity to explain the scale of our ambitions to boost growth and unlock opportunities, and understand how we can support the government to get this right.”

Lord Blunkett said it was vital to improve transport in the North to “counterweight” Donald Trump’s tariffs.

It comes as Kevin Hassett, a senior economic adviser to the US President, suggested the blanket 10 per cent tariff rate most countries now face was likely to be a “baseline”.

“The predictions at the moment, on the back of what Trump has done, is that it will increase inequality in Britain,” Lord Blunkett said.

“The [financial] services sector, based in London and the South East, is going to be hit much less than manufacturing and business, because the services sector isn't affected by tariffs, whereas manufacturing is.

“We've got to counterweight the potential danger that what's happening with world trade will disadvantage us much more than it will the South and the South East.”