FAQs

The purpose of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority Rail Strategy is to translate the high-level objectives, outcomes and outputs contained in the Rail Vision, published in 2021, into specific identifiable interventions, a coherent overall strategic framework, and an implementation plan.  The Rail Strategy is one part of our Connectivity Infrastructure Plan, which sets out a long-term infrastructure investment programme for the next 20 years. 

We are setting out a clear vision for the future of rail in West Yorkshire and its role in supporting our ambitions for our region in terms of improving standards of living and tackling the climate emergency.

The West Yorkshire Combined Authority Rail Strategy covers West Yorkshire, the region with the UK’s largest economy outside of London.  As well as looking locally at priorities and the role of rail, we look beyond boundaries to consider the role of our region within wider Northern and national context.

Yes.  While the Rail Strategy represents the Combined Authority’s view, driven by our stated economic, social and environmental objectives, it is directly informed by existing and ongoing work from a wide variety of sources.  We work closely with others, especially with Transport for the North and Network Rail, and have provided input to others such as via Government’s consultations on the Integrated Rail Plan, the Williams-Shapps Plan, the Union Connectivity Review, and many others.  The key purpose of our Rail Strategy is however to articulate our independent view, based on a wide evidence base and on our regional priorities, to inform the wider industry planning process as a whole.

The Combined Authority has set clear objectives in relation to social inclusion, sustainable economic growth, quality of life, and addressing the climate crisis by moving to net-zero carbon by 2038.  A substantial upgrade in our public transport network is essential if we are to achieve this; communities need to have easy access to employment opportunities, education, services and leisure amenities – and businesses must have access to the right employees as well as to other businesses.  This connectivity cannot be achieved in a way that is socially inclusive other than with public transport.  Mass car-based mobility is not practicable. Not only are there large sectors of the population without access to a car, but accommodating the traffic that would be implied is, in our densely populated city region, not a credible option, even if the environmental consequences were acceptable.  Our Carbon Pathways work has confirmed that moving to net-zero must involve large-scale growth in public transport, and rail in particular, both from modal shift from car use and from ensuring that new mobility is sustainable.  An attractive public transport network must exploit rail’s advantages to the full.  No other mode can achieve the point-to-point speed and high capacity, nor rival its energy-efficiency, nor offer the ready ability to operate on a zero-carbon basis.  Rail alongside other public transport modes must be the backbone of our integrated system.  For freight too, the very high energy efficiency of rail (and its ability to be zero-carbon with the right infrastructure) mean that rail must play an increased role if our region is to flourish in a net-zero world. 

The Rail Strategy contains a wide variety of recommendations. Some are for the short term, some would only come to fruition in coming decades.  Some are relatively low-cost, and others very substantial investments.  Some are within the Combined Authority’s own power, others involve us influencing others The paths to implementation will vary.  This is set out in more detail in the Strategy document itself, which shows what types of interventions are likely to be within our own gift, which are likely to be taken forward in partnership with other bodies such as Network Rail, the Department for Transport (DfT) and/or train operators, and which depend on us using our influence to make the case for decisions taken at. Similarly, the Strategy sets out examples of the potential routes to funding interventions of various types.   

As a strategic document, the Rail Strategy does not attempt a full analysis of the costs and benefits of all of the recommendations it contains.  This would require specific intervention schemes to be developed in more detail than is appropriate at this stage, and is therefore for subsequent stages of work.  However, the deliverability of the recommendations, including the order of magnitude of the interventions required in proportion to the benefits they would bring, as well as how they might be phased, has been considered when deciding on the recommendations.  The Rail Strategy does however also include reference to schemes already in existence, or now under development, which have already been costed and/or appraised in financial / economic terms.  The task is now to move to a position where defined and costed schemes exist for all of the Strategy’s recommendations.  While the precise nature of the interventions will evolve as this scheme development happens, we are confident that the social, economic and environmental benefits of the Rail Strategy’s recommendations will greatly outweigh the costs. 

It is true that the capital cost of rail investments is high – similar to most infrastructure schemes such as roads.  However, the payback period is long, reflecting the long life of the assets that are gained.  Some capital investment can bring direct savings that can produce a financial case for investment – such as by electrifying a railway to make it more efficient.  While there is still “low-hanging fruit” in terms of relatively modest investment schemes that could yield significant results such as adding capacity to the network or improving journey times. The reality is that our region has seen little major investment in rail infrastructure for decades, so some major and costly interventions will inevitably be required.  Nonetheless, we firmly support the efforts of the industry to tackle the costs inflation that recent years have seen, and to bring costs down to levels closer to our European peers and world best practice. 

In Britain as a whole, rail travel is at present more common among those with higher incomes.  This is also true of car and (above all) air travel.  However, in West Yorkshire our regional network performs a much more inclusive role in terms of taking employees to work, students to lectures, and pupils to schools – as well as providing a vital lifeline connecting communities to vital services and allowing non-car-owners access to the leisure attractions of our region that are vital for a good quality of life.  Without this access to amenity and to opportunity, many communities would suffer economic decline and worse social deprivation.  The Rail Strategy focuses strongly on rail as a tool, working together with bus and mass transit, in delivering socially inclusive economic growth.  Business too depends on having good access to a wide variety of potential employees.  Improved rail services and accessibility to rail network will provide better access to job opportunities for all.  Climate emergency is the biggest issue we face in this generation regardless of wealth and background, so rail alongside other public transport modes must be the backbone of our integrated system to tackle climate change. 

The railway has to be seen as a system, and our region depends on it, not only for connectivity within West Yorkshire, but for our links throughout the country (and indeed beyond).  For example, additional capacity around Manchester is needed for us to be able to extend Calder Valley rail services from Bradford to Manchester Airport.  It is therefore essential that our Rail Strategy makes our aspirations clear for the intercity, interregional and national strategic freight networks.  Beyond this, interventions well beyond our region’s boundaries can have direct effects on services within them. This has been seen through the impacts of capacity constraints on the East Coast Mainline on what local services we can operate between Leeds / Wakefield and Doncaster / Sheffield.  So, it is entirely proper that we should seek to influence relevant planning in locations that affect us.  We have, both directly, and through our partners in Transport for the North, have a seat at the table in strategic rail planning at national level.  The Rail Strategy will be a vital tool in guiding our inputs to this planning.

There is a wide perception that rail fares are expensive and that this can act as a barrier both to modal shift from car use, and to access to opportunity.  While rail fares are highly complex and vary greatly, this is clearly a very real issue.  We do not, as a Combined Authority, have the power to set or lower rail fares.  However, there could be opportunities to influence policy in this area.  We take the view that the best way for us to assess this issue at regional level is through a wider consideration of the cost of travel, taking all relevant modes (including rail and other public transport) into the equation, against the backdrop of our objectives in terms of inclusive and sustainable economic growth, and the climate emergency.  Nonetheless the Rail Strategy does also identify evidence that revised fares policies would achieve desirable results, such as in the context of long-distance travel.

The Rail Strategy has been written with the ongoing industry reforms in mind.  While it is neutral as to the specific merits of alternative models of ownership and operation, the Williams-Shapps Plan offers some very real opportunities. These include the devolution of decision-making and strategic partnerships between Combined Authorities and industry players, simplification of industry structures and the removal of conflicting incentives that exist at present, and the creation of an overall “guiding mind” in Great British Railways.

Absolutely not.  While Leeds is clearly the major strategic rail hub of our region and will remain so, the network needs to evolve so that it meets the needs of future travel patterns, which are likely to be more diverse.  There is a need, for example, to enhance connectivity between the other major district centres of West Yorkshire (such as Wakefield, Halifax and Huddersfield) and with neighbouring centres such as York, Sheffield and Manchester. As well as to reinvent the way in which the railway network serves the city of Bradford.  The ways in which this will be done are varied, but will include enhancements to existing service patterns, new services, and also the ways in which services interact, including making Leeds and other major hubs work as connecting nodes rather than only as destinations. 

Yes, absolutely.  The Rail Strategy has been written in full recognition of the content of the Integrated Rail Plan published in autumn 2021 which sets out Government’s view on priorities for rail investment in the Midlands and North.   While the Combined Authority welcomes a commitment to making significant investment in rail infrastructure in the North especially on Transpennine Route Upgrade, it is our view that there are several areas where its recommendations fall short of delivering our aspirations and are not compatible with meeting our strategic objectives.  The Rail Strategy will help shape our inputs to the ongoing work to which the Integrated Rail Plan has given rise and ensure they are based on the strongest evidence.

The Rail Strategy contains a set of maps / route diagrams which summarise how the overall recommendations it makes will translate into specific service patterns, changes to stations, and other location-specific interventions.  The aim is to demonstrate how the changes will deliver consistent and higher standards of services and facilities across our region. This will help to shape the rail investment decision to upgrade the region’s current rail infrastructure, help shape the national rail programmes and deliver new projects, on which consultation and engagement activities will be carried out at an appropriate stage.     

A train journey is part of a door-to-door journey, and if public transport is to be attractive, it needs to consider that entire journey.  The railway is particularly good at carrying people quickly from one station to another.  It will only contribute to a successful network if we improve journeys to and from the station, interchanges between trains, and integration with buses, Mass Transit and other modes. Integrating services is about ensuring that public transport is a viable option for a much wider range of trips than it is at present.  Integrating timetables and routes make for easy, intuitive and seamless connections across the network unlocking opportunities and providing a real alternative to car journeys.  Our vision is to enable travel from anywhere in West Yorkshire to anywhere else in the region, at least twice per hour, at the same times each hour, all day, and every day – seamlessly, simply, reliably, and without worry about ticketing. 

Passenger safety is at the heart of the Rail Strategy.  Trains, stations, and the routes to and from stations, must be physically designed to incorporate best practice to promote safety.  While the Rail Strategy understands that not all stations can be staffed, where they are, staff can be deployed in ways that maximise their effect in deterring crime and aiding security. Where they are unstaffed, high-quality, directly monitored CCTV, with fast responses to incidents and effective ways to report issues, can play a role.  We consider that the development of integrated clockface timetabling also has a role to play in promoting safety. By concentrating connections between trains, and with buses, at particular times around each hour, passenger flows will be concentrated, and therefore the risk of an interchanging passenger feeling isolated while waiting alone for a bus / train will be reduced.  

Our Rail Strategy is a part of the wider Connectivity Infrastructure Plan, alongside plans for buses, Mass Transit, and active modes.  As such, each mode is not seen in isolation but viewed as part of the overall network.  Bus and rail play complementary roles, and many journeys involve the use of both modes.  In the future, more journeys will need to make use of seamless integration between bus and rail if we are to achieve our modal shift, inclusive mobility goals and to achieve sustainable economic growth.  Both our bus and rail strategies develop these themes further, and future work will translate this into showing how a better integrated network might look, taking advantage of expected reforms in both the bus and rail sectors as well as the advent of Mass Transit. 

West Yorkshire needs both Mass Transit and enhancements to the classic rail network.  Our Mass Transit work has identified several areas where a new transport offer is required to achieve our objectives – generally corridors that are currently reliant on bus (or car) use for their mobility – where technologies such as trams or bus rapid transit offer the best opportunity for the step-change that is needed. These are different functions from those which the railway serves.  On corridors that are served by the existing rail network, trains offer rapid and high-capacity mobility, although at present the quality of the offer varies significantly.  The nature of the corridors and flows does not lend itself to conversion.  For example, to light rail in the way that Manchester successfully did with the first phases of Metrolink. Our rail corridors, especially the radial routes around Leeds, all carry very substantial loadings that would be difficult to transfer fully in this way.  Many corridors also link with longer-distance routes; and/or carry a mix of local passenger, intercity and/or freight flows; and/or cover significant distances between stops such that the high, top speed of classic rail.  Finally, any new Mass Transit network will itself still have a finite capacity, for example in Leeds city centre. Any attempt to transfer existing rail services onto the new network would significantly reduce that capacity, thereby compromising the ability of the Mass Transit system to carry out the tasks identified for it.  Mass Transit and the classic rail enhancements summarised in the Rail Strategy are being developed in parallel and complement one another, not as alternatives. 

The Rail Strategy has been developed in parallel with those for bus and Mass Transit.  They are not alternative modes but exist to complement one another, as part of an integrated system. The rail network will not yield its full potential without support from the bus network, and vice versa, and the same applies to Mass Transit.  Therefore, the case must be made to take all these modes – and active travel – forward together on a holistic basis.   

The Combined Authority is proud of its decades-long history of transforming access to the network through building additional stations on existing lines.  However, with some exceptions including the stations currently under development or in delivery (such as Elland, White Rose, Thorpe Park and Leeds Bradford Airport Parkway), the number of opportunities to build further stations is diminishing.  While there are certain sites that have real potential for possible new stations, none of those identified would be straightforward to deliver.  Hurdles include operational matters (such as creating conflicts between fast and stopping trains), constructional issues (some sites would be fairly challenging to access and build), the availability of land, and the potential negative impact of making existing rail passengers’ journeys slower. 

The Rail Strategy has included a study of “Network Gaps”. These include major places in our region that are not on the railway at all, or links that are missing between points that are on the railway.  Many, though not all, of the gaps identified do coincide with former railway routes.  However, in West Yorkshire the extent of land development over the last 50 years has meant that in very many cases, a reinstatement of the historic routes as classic mainline railways would be physically difficult and therefore alternative solutions, such as Mass Transit, must be considered.  There some exceptions to this, where there does appear to be a good case for something akin to a reinstatement of a closed railway line as a longer-term aspiration, as well as certain connecting curves that could unlock valuable new rail connectivity. The Strategy recommends examining in more detail the feasibility of rail services to Otley, in the Spen Valley (potentially alongside Mass Transit), on the existing Worth Valley heritage line, and between Penistone and Deepcar (and on to Sheffield).  We have also confirmed the Combined Authority’s support for the widely-supported proposal to reinstate the Colne – Skipton line for passenger and freight use. 

Following the closure of engagement, all feedback will be considered and used to shape the final version of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority Rail Strategy.   

Equal access to the rail network is a right, not a luxury. Improving accessibility and inclusivity benefits a broad range of existing and potential rail users, including older people, people with mobility impairments, people with pushchairs and small children – while improving the experience for all travellers.

Our Station Access study identified stations where access provision currently falls short of modern requirements. Whenever funding opportunities arise, we will seek to develop business cases and secure funding to rectify the gaps identified and improve access to our stations.

We have completed accessibility audits in all West Yorkshire stations operated by Northern Rail (the remaining stations in our region operated by Network rail or other operators, do now meet current standards). We are working closely with the rail industry to make use of available funding to implement a programme of smaller accessibility schemes, such as compliant signage and toilets. In terms of larger-scale accessibility improvements, such as installing lifts, we are working closely with Northern to make joint submissions for Access for All funding and will provide match-funding whenever appropriate to maximise the opportunity for success.