A new railway station will be built in Bradford to “transform how people travel across the north”, the government has announced.
The station will be at the heart of the Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) scheme, built on the current Bradford Interchange site but allowing through trains between Leeds and Manchester.
With the promise of more frequent and faster services, it is expected to support new homes and jobs for the West Yorkshire city, located alongside its Southern Gateway regeneration project and connecting to the proposed tram to Leeds.
Approval of the station, which is expected to be built by the mid-2030s, has been regarded by northern leaders as a critical sign of political commitment to improving rail links across the north, after long delays in delivering pledged upgrades.
The Department for Transport said that NPR would allow a “turn-up-and-go railway” for passengers from Bradford, with sufficiently frequent trains running across the north for people not to need to check timetables.
The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, said: “Today marks an important milestone for Bradford with a brand-new station that will transform how people travel across the north.”
The new station, along with the proposed West Yorkshire mass transit network – better known as the Leeds tram – will bring more than £1bn in economic benefits, according to Bradford council.
The mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin, said: “Bradford has so much untapped potential, and faster, more frequent trains to Leeds and Manchester, and the transformation of the city centre will help to finally unleash it.”
Henri Murison, the chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said the decision to build a new station at Bradford Interchange represented “a long-term commitment to the city and the wider north”. He added: “Confidence is already building here, and this will help build it further.”
NPR was first promised by the Conservatives in 2014 but no firm funded plans emerged for the proposed railway linking cities from Liverpool to Hull.
The government under Keir Starmer announced in January that NPR would be delivered in three stages, with a funding cap of £45bn, which could be topped up by local contributions.
The scheme will start by improving connections on existing lines around Yorkshire. It also includes plans for a new line between Liverpool and Manchester.
As mayor of Greater Manchester at the time, Andy Burnham had championed a new underground station for Manchester Piccadilly as part of the project, which the Treasury did not approve.
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The rail industry is also anticipating more work on improving Manchester-Birmingham links to replace the scrapped HS2 northern leg, another transport issue long pushed by Burnham.
Northern transport links could be improved further after the mayor of South Yorkshire and other leaders announced plans to bring Doncaster Sheffield airport into public ownership.
The combined authority and Doncaster city council are set to buy the airport from Peel Land, hoping to restart freight next year and passenger flights by spring 2028.
The airport’s owners shut down operations in November 2022, regarding it as commercially unviable.
However, South Yorkshire’s mayor, Oliver Coppard, said that, subject to formal approval, a deal was now going through that “puts the future of DSA back in our hands and finally gives one of the biggest and best growth opportunities in South Yorkshire the platform for long-term success that it needs and deserves”.
He said the government’s devolution agenda had allowed them to now act to resume flights to the city, adding: “When the airport closed, almost everything was against us; the owners did not want to sell, we had no legal powers to intervene or stop the airport from closing, and no backing from the government at the time. Today, the sky’s the limit.”
