ELLAND station should open by the end of 2022. HADRAG says it’s a brilliant project with a superb local access package encouraging active travel – walking and cycling – to get people via regenerated parkland, new bridges and canal side to the station, Lowfields business park and all along from Greetland to Park Road. A phase 2 public consultation here closes on Sunday 16 August – get in quick to support the project and comment on the latest details (you’ll find there’s feedback to read from the earlier consultation). We are determined not to accept any further delay to Elland. The Calder Valley Line will be used for diversions when work is being done for the TransPennine Route upgrade. Elland station could be an ideal alternative railhead for Huddersfield passengers at times when their station is out of use. So we say let’s get Elland done first. More below, and read HADRAG and Railfuture Yorkshire’s response to the consultation at this link. Link to WYCA website for consultation is https://www.yourvoice.westyorks-ca.gov.uk/elland2020#!
ELLAND station is already 20 years late and counting, having been shelved to save money when Brighouse opened in May 2000. As planning proceeds to full business case with a target to open before the end of 2022, we say any further delay can not be acceptable.
TRU concern. Following a government announcement last month of £589 million for the TransPennine Route Upgrade on the Huddersfield line, it still is not quite clear when that project will start. When it does start there will be periods when the Calder Valley Line is used for diversions and that won’t just affect the service at the new Elland station. The rumour machine has suggested Elland could be held up while TRU is completed, and whilst we have been told that is not expected to happen, the concern remains. If Elland had to wait for TRU it could take another 5 years, maybe more and that would be massive disappointment for local people who want their railway station and are eager to use the linked package of new and upgraded active travel routes linking the station to town centre, Park Road and Greetland via new bridges and canal path.
So we say get Elland done first. The official target is still to open the station by the December 2022 timetable change. The TRU work will mean there will be periods when Huddersfield station is closed for remodelling work. TransPennine Express services may then be diverted via the Calder Valley Line. If Elland station is already built it could be an ideal alternative railhead for passengers who normally use Huddersfield. The railway geography also tells us there will be periods when the service along the Brighouse and Elland line is also disrupted. But this will also affect other existing stations, and is no reason to delay Elland.
HADRAG will be pressing the case for Elland first, with local representatives, council and WYCA contacts, MPs and the transport secretary Grant Shapps. if anything, we argue, Elland needs to be brought forward by a few months, not put back. Along with the £589M for TRU, Mr Shapps announced a new Northern Transport Acceleration Council to speed up projects across our greater region. There was some understandable disquiet at what seemed to be top-down imposition, but maybe the new body could not just get planning of TRU and other schemes accelerated but also make sure schemes like Elland are not left behind.
Consultation response: HADRAG has submitted a joint response with Railfuture Yorkshire Branch to the Phase 2 consultation by West Yorkshire Combined Authority on Elland. You can read our response at this link. If you are reading this before 16 August you also have time to send in your own response (details here). We praise the wider access package of active travel links that will open up Calderdale’s countryside to visitors arriving by rail, as well providing healthy access to the station. And we renew our call for a better service on the Elland-Brighouse line; the aim should be at least half-hourly on both east-west and north-south routes in line with WYCA policy and we say this will be an essential development in the years after the station opens. We expect the TransPennine Route Upgraded, when it is complete, to provide new capacity through Huddersfield and Mirfield that will allow more trains from Calderdale to Huddersfield, Leeds and Wakefield. But we still say let’s build Elland first! From the start, we hope Grand Central will call at Elland with its popular Bradford-London trains, so the new station will immediately have more than Northern’s Leeds-Brighouse-Manchester-Wigan and Bradford-Huddersfield local trains.
Bus and hospital links. We also call for the new station to be joined up with local bus routes taking people around Elland, Greetland and Stainland. This will need a bus stop by the station on Lowfields Way, and we have suggested a new network of local “hopper” routes. This should be easier as the proposed mayoral devolution deal for West Yorkshire should allow the county to take back control of buses.
We also say Elland could be an excellent railhead for people from the upper valley to access Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS hospitals – staff, patients and visitors. We suggest a minibus link which could be demand-responsive and might even be free to use.
The station will have a reasonably large car park. Past experience suggests station car parks are never quite “big enough”. Covid-19 means transport is in crisis now, but we must work for a future where the car and congested, polluted roads are no longer first choice. Public transport must become sociable transport, popular but not overcrowded, first choice for the whole community. And of course electric as advocated by the Electric Railway Charter.
Halifax and District Rail Action Group 