Campaigners call on Andy Burnham to make 'cast iron pledge' to deliver tram system in Leeds and West Yorkshire

Campaigners in Leeds are calling on Andy Burnham to make a “cast iron pledge” to deliver trams across the region.

The ‘West Yorkshire Needs a Tram’ campaign group has today (Monday, July 27) marked ‘Supertram Day’ by calling on Prime Minister Andy Burnham to make a “cast iron pledge” to fully fund a West Yorkshire mass transit system, 33 years after the last attempt at a city tram was approved.

On July 27, 1993 the Leeds Supertram Act received Royal Assent, but it was scrapped less than a decade later by a Labour government citing rising costs.

In the intervening time London’s Elizabeth Line was approved and built, while the French city of Lyon has built eight mass transit lines. Leeds has remained without a tramline.

“Andy Burnham wants to devolve more power and money to the North. The best thing he could do right now is announce a fully funded tram for West Yorkshire, with all decision making powers resting not in Whitehall but Wellington Street,” said Tram campaigner Gareth Forest.

“The Treasury has held back West Yorkshire for too long. We want to see Andy call time on Whitehall’s interference in our public transit.”

Leeds remains the largest city in Western Europe without a tram system, and after numerous false dawns, plans to build a highly-anticipated mass transit system in West Yorkshire have been delayed by several years to the late 2030s.

Campaigners blame this on a lack of funding provided by the Treasury, and believe the problem could be solved by a cast iron multi-year funding pledge, and by handing more devolved powers to Mayor of West Yorkshire Tracy Brabin.

West Yorkshire’s mass transit project has hit a few bumps, with the proposed completion date being pushed back to the late 2030s after Whitehall told the West Yorkshire Combined Authority to change its process

The Department for Transport is also insisting that Mayor Brabin puts together a business case for a bus network as well as trams, before it approves the most cost effective proposal.

Angela Rayner, the returning Local Government Secretary under Andy Burnham’s new cabinet, recently cited the region’s tram plans as an area where devolution needs to go further.

“The tram for instance in Leeds for example, the mayor Tracy Brabin wants to drive these changes and her frustration is that she had to go to different parts of Government and say can you do this in the time I needed, because then I can drive the economy,” she told the BBC.

“So breaking down those barriers and giving powers in areas where they need it, we’ll be able to collectively drive economic growth.”

Phase one of the highly-anticipated £2.5bn project would see two lines, one connecting Leeds and Bradford, with another running from St James's Hospital to the White Rose Centre. Future phases of the network would aim to reach Wakefield, Kirklees and Calderdale.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has made devolution a centrepiece of his project, to increase trust in politics and drive economic growth.

Leeds has been without a light rail or mass transit system since its original tram network was axed in 1959. Plans to restore them were first proposed in 1991 and have included the Supertram scheme that was shelved in 2005 and a proposed trolleybus network that was rejected in 2016.