Another day, another overblown announcement from the new-ish government – this time that a new rail station for Bradford “will improve connections, support economic growth and set the foundations for new homes, jobs and opportunities across the North”.
The substantive announcement is that:
the government has today confirmed a new station at Bradford Interchange
Beyond that, it seems to be a lot of over-promising and wishful thinking. Claims that
Bradford’s connections with some of the North’s largest cities, including Leeds, Manchester and York, will be transformed as passengers will be able to benefit from more frequent trains, improved journey times and reliability
are undermined by the decision to rebuild an existing dead-end station, which might make the through trains that everyone agrees are needed more difficult than a new site.
It is understood that a decision has not yet been made on whether trains will be able to travel through the new railway station, or change direction and reverse out, as is currently the case.
Note that the Department for Transport is using an image (below) that implies a through station.
And what exactly has been announced? The BBC carries a comment from the (Reform) leader of Bradford Council that the funding will unlock the next stage of work, which appears to be engineering studies. Is the announcement just funding to plan a new station at some point
in the 2030s
as the announcement puts it?
In addition:
Bradford Council says delivering the new station alongside the proposed West Yorkshire Mass Transit network will unlock thousands of jobs and homes, and more than £1 billion in economic benefits
But, as I may have mentioned, West Yorkshire Mass Transit has not been agreed, let alone that it will go to a new Bradford Interchange station, so the claim is pure spin.
And then there’s the claim that the new station…
is a key part of the government’s Northern Growth Strategy, which, with Northern Powerhouse Rail, is electrifying and upgrading routes between Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield and York
… which co-opts the long-standing Transpennine Route Upgrade into Labour Policy, allowing chancellor John Healey to claim:
This government is doing things differently. We are backing local leaders and investing in the infrastructure that people need.
No, it’s the same old incrementalist stuff tediously dressed up as something bigger.
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