{"id":533498,"date":"2026-04-16T04:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T04:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/533498\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T04:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T04:44:12","slug":"field-of-dreams-stuff-will-leeds-finally-get-its-trams-after-decades-of-promises-transport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/533498\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Field of Dreams stuff\u2019: will Leeds finally get its trams after decades of promises? | Transport"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is 1993 and a young James Lewis is going to do work experience in Leeds<\/a> city council\u2019s highways department. His team, Leeds United FC, have only just relinquished the title of defending English champions. And the council is marching on with big ideas: putting the abandoned 1980s Metroline tram plan behind them, and forgetting the unloved 1991 concept of a Leeds Advanced Transit skytrain. The Supertram is the coming thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember these drawers and drawers, full of big paper plans,\u201d says Lewis, 33 years on. Lewis is now leader of the city council, and it is all done online. Much of the city centre has been transformed, rebuilt and pedestrianised. Leeds United have never threatened to be champions again. But as Lewis stands outside Elland Road stadium, explaining how to cross the adjacent motorway, one thing has not changed. What Leeds really wants is to build a tram.<\/p>\n

Funding for that Supertram was eventually promised by the incoming Labour government only to be withdrawn in 2005<\/a>, deemed not worth the expense. A cheaper alternative, a trolleybus network<\/a>, was dropped in 2016.<\/p>\n

Now the government has given fresh backing for the latest iteration, West Yorkshire Mass Transit. As outlined by the mayor of the combined authority, Tracy Brabin, over the past four years, that should be an integrated network of buses around two tram lines, one through south Leeds and another linking neighbouring Bradford.<\/p>\n

Development money totalling \u00a3200m has been given, and future funding available from \u00a32.1bn allocated to the city region. But, after warnings in a critical independent review of the plans carried out for the Treasury, the government has also insisted that West Yorkshire adhere to its strict process<\/a> \u2013 rather than what Brabin likes to call her \u201ctrailblazer approach\u201d.<\/p>\n

That means working up a fresh business case, proving the need for trams not buses, and then reheating consultations. This will push the opening date for any tram back into the late 2030s. Some see it as proof of serious commitment; others, a familiar story of eternal delay.<\/p>\n

Brabin says it was disappointing, and some, she acknowledges, \u201care now saying, that\u2019s it, of course we\u2019re not going to get anything, it\u2019s cancelled\u201d. She insists it has \u201cjust knocked us on two years, but we are still on track\u201d.<\/p>\n

Leeds is the biggest city in Europe without a mass transit system. It had trams, once: doubledeckers that ran through city centre streets and up leafy tracks, canned in 1959. There are wide roads aplenty, partly the inheritance of 1970s town planning for a booming \u201cmotorway city\u201d. The M621 flanking Elland Road is now seen as having cut off the south of the city from prosperity.<\/p>\n

The M621 is now seen as having cut off the south of the city from prosperity. Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Buses come this way, but on a match day, most people walk the two miles from the centre to the stadium. No route is pinned down yet, but Lewis says a tram line will probably \u201cfloat over or under the motorway, a bit like the Docklands Light Railway\u201d. Previous proposals, he says, have faltered through trying to squeeze trams on to existing bus routes and roads. This, he says, is going to be different: anchoring the city and linking institutions such as the White Rose shopping centre, the stadium, the main railway station and St James\u2019s hospital with what he calls \u201clegible, easy to use, high-quality public transport\u201d.<\/p>\n

He says of the latest delay: \u201cRachel Reeves has allocated a lot of money. It was someone taking a very clear-eyed view of how long it takes to get a scheme through a public inquiry. It wasn\u2019t someone sitting in London saying: \u2018Leeds can wait another five years.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Not all are convinced. Greg Marsden, a professor at Leeds University\u2019s Institute for Transport<\/a> Studies, says: \u201cWe\u2019re taking 18 years to build a tram line. How can that possibly be the case?\u201d<\/p>\n

The latest scheme was in itself a sop for the loss of HS2: the planned north-eastern leg of the high-speed rail network linking London, Manchester and Leeds. It was ended under Boris Johnson, in 2021; better, he said, for West Yorkshire to get on with mass transit.<\/p>\n

Since then, says Marsden: \u201cThere\u2019s been quite a lot of process, proposals for a whole network, consultation. To be saying we\u2019re not yet in a position to go ahead smacks of a lack of real commitment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tom Forth, a co-founder of the Data City company information group in Leeds, says the \u201cthe root cause is that the Department for Transport is based in London, the Treasury is based in London, the political decision was taken in London. There needs to be local tax-raising. If we had devolution we would get this stuff done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Armley in Leeds, where the tram line to Bradford is likely to pass through. Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Forth and Marsden point to France, which has built tram systems paid for and decided locally rather than having to prove the value for money to a sceptical Treasury.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo we believe that, even if the numbers don\u2019t look compelling on a benefit cost ratio, that it would actually change Leeds, it would change connectivity in the region?\u201d Marsden says. \u201cThere has to be an element of build-it-and-they-will-come, Field of Dreams stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forth says it feeds into \u201cthat lingering sense that Britain can\u2019t build anything.\u201d. The Heathrow third runway is more explicable, he says.\u201cLots of people don\u2019t want it built. But Leeds really does want the tram.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Leeds United investor and director Pete Lowy is a vocal backer. Work to expand the stadium by 15,000 seats is under way, and mass transit will have a major bearing on how they develop the surrounding site \u2013 potentially bringing in \u00a31bn of investment to build 2,500 new homes, work, retail and leisure spaces. He says: \u201cIf the tram goes ahead and the city gets this right, then we can help transform that part of Leeds. This is about much more than match days. It is a real opportunity for Leeds to bring together infrastructure, housing, investment and regeneration in a way that could have a lasting impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leeds South Bank was last month shortlisted as one of the government\u2019s new towns, potentially accelerating the growth of the city. The higher-rise centre has spread south, reaching empty brownfield sites and industrial estates at Sweet Street, the location of the legendary ex-striker Peter Lorimer\u2019s Commercial Inn. Closed, ransacked and firebombed since 2018, it has recently been adorned with \u201cpositive energy\u201d murals<\/a> by the Yorkshire artist Kid Acne, a landmark for a neighbouring development site for offices and 1,350 flats.<\/p>\n

Not all of the Leeds public appears convinced of the need for mass transit. A builder leaving the Sweet Street site says: \u201cLeeds is not big enough for a tram. It\u2019s not like Manchester; that\u2019s massive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gladys Crosby, studying to be a personal trainer, is walking home to Holbeck. A direct link to the A&E across the city would help, she says, but she does not hold out much hope: \u201cMy whole life they\u2019ve said it\u2019s going to get better \u2013 I\u2019m 24 now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over in Armley, the inner city side of Reeves\u2019s Leeds West constituency primed to benefit from the Bradford line, an elderly couple is waiting for an Uber. Would they welcome the tram? \u201cOoh yes,\u201d she says. But the man says: \u201cThey closed down the year I was born. It\u2019ll never happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Locals in Armley voice doubts about whether the tram project will happen. Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

At the far end of the second planned line, Henri Murison, the chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, is standing on a windswept road bridge above Bradford interchange, pointing out a new building. A large clinic is the start of what he hopes will be a swathe of further urban regeneration, the city\u2019s Southern Gateway project, prompted by the tram. \u201cThis is not hypothetical: that is provable investment coming in right now on the back of promised transport development.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Murison\u2019s reading, the delay is welcome: doing it by the letter of Treasury process with ministerial backing makes it less likely to meet the fate of the 1990s Supertram.<\/p>\n

The pledge of \u201cspades in the ground\u201d by 2028, for preparatory works of some kind, remains, Brabin says. Until then, the team will focus their energy on improving existing bus services.<\/p>\n

Buses will come under public control in 2027. According to Rob Johnson of the Centre for Cities, right now \u201cthe single most consequential thing Leeds could do is to increase frequencies on its existing bus services\u201d. In a study he found less than half of the city\u2019s 800,000 residents, about 390,000, were well connected, and better buses alone would connect more than new trams.<\/p>\n

But Lewis and Brabin argue the point of the tram is not only to improve existing journeys but to underpin massive development.<\/p>\n

For Brabin, trams are \u201cmore attractive, they take more people, they deliver more jobs and growth. They\u2019re more reliable.<\/p>\n

\u201cI promised tram, and tram is what we\u2019re going to get.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is 1993 and a young James Lewis is going to do work experience in Leeds city council\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-533498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}