Plans to bring trams, or at least some form of mass transit, to West Yorkshire continue to go forward at a glacial pace, with the government continuing to talk a good game, while Leeds United do their talking on the pitch.
Plans to bring trams to Leeds United’s redeveloped ground as part of a new mass transit network for the city have taken a step closer with a fresh agreement between the club and Mayor Tracy Brabin, The Yorkshire Post can reveal.
On Tuesday, Leeds’ development partner, The Lowy Family Group, Leeds City Council and Ms Brabin’s West Yorkshire Combined Authority will sign a Memorandum of Understanding committing to working together to transform the site around Elland Road.
The memorandum apparently cites the plan to include Elland Road as an arm of mass transit:
If the strategic outline case is approved later in the year, then pre-development work can start to plan the mass transit network into Elland Road’s designs.
But completion of the network remains around a decade away and it still might be a few better buses.
The Yorkshire Post opines elsewhere that a meeting last week between Brabin and Keir Starmer “ought to focus minds” on delivering it:
The mere suggestion from Whitehall officials that the West Yorkshire Mayor look at delivering buses instead of getting a tram network built is laughable. Not only that but it’s illustrative of the disconnect between those in Whitehall, who have a disproportionate say over the lives of people in this region, and those who actually live here.
The PM is right to say that the length of time taken to deliver mass transit in West Yorkshire is “ridiculous”. That is why the Government needs to step in and intervene.
I’m not sure Starmer did say this, but if he did, he’s right.
The Yorkshire Post does correctly note that:
People don’t need to be fans of Leeds United Football Club to know that it is a sleeping giant of European football. The city of Leeds is also a sleeping giant. It is the largest city in Western Europe without a mass transit system.
Picture credit: RISE/LFG
One response to “A sleeping giant”
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You say that plans are moving forward at a glacial pace but actually glaciers are disappearing much more quickly than it is taking to get a tram system in West Yorkshire.
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