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Should disused Bradford railway tunnel be filled with concrete or turned into a bike route?
Campaigners hoping to turn a disused West Yorkshire railway tunnel into a sustainable transport corridor have called for supporters to join them in fighting a planning application to abandon the 1.4-mile long Victorian structure.
The Queensbury Tunnel Society says that the 2,501-yard tunnel, which closed to rail traffic in 1956, could house part of a cycle route running from Bradford to Halifax.
A Sustrans study estimated such a project could bring £37.6m in social, economic and tourism benefits over a 30-year period.
Highways England’s Historical Railways Estate (HRE), which manages the Queensbury Tunnel on behalf of the Department for Transport, wants to permanently close it due to perceived safety concerns. Abandonment would cost upwards of £3.6m.
More than 10,800 people have signed an ePetition backing the alternative cycle network proposal and Bradford and Calderdale councils also backed the scheme in February.
Despite this, plans for the tunnel’s closure have now been submitted for Bradford Council’s approval.
Norah McWilliam, leader of the Queensbury Tunnel Society, said: “Queensbury Tunnel is a remarkable public asset which establishes a strategic connection between Calderdale and Bradford District, overcoming the ridge that separates them. If there is ever to be a cycle link between the two areas, it will have to go through the tunnel. So what’s needed here is long-term vision.
“We will have failed future generations if the opportunities presented by the tunnel are allowed to slip through our fingers. It could help us to meet our emerging health and environmental obligations, improve connectivity for commuters, draw visitors to explore our built heritage and natural landscapes, and serve as a leisure facility for communities along its route.
“It also offers high value for money, with £2.31 returned for every £1 invested. In contrast, abandonment is likely to cost around £5m and offer absolutely no benefit.”
HRE’s plans involve filling less than 15 per cent of the tunnel around the two entrances and six shafts. The remainder would be left to flood and collapse over time.
Around 440 residential properties lie above, within the tunnel’s ‘zone of influence’.
Graeme Bickerdike, Engineering Co-ordinator for the Queensbury Tunnel Society, said: “The people of Queensbury should ask themselves whether they would prefer to live above a tunnel that’s been sealed up and left to collapse and flood, or one that’s subject to an ongoing regime of inspection and maintenance; perhaps even fully repaired so it’s safe enough to cycle through.
“If they don’t like the sound of the first option, they need to make their voices heard by objecting to HRE’s planning application.”
Comments and objections can be lodged via the planning portal on Bradford Council’s website.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
Latest Comments
- mctrials23 8 min 26 sec ago
The drivers are also licensed so they obviously behave themselves as well.
- Rendel Harris 36 min 42 sec ago
A few years back I had a police officer stop me (they were looking for a recently stolen bike and I had one from the same manufacturer, although...
- chrisonabike 37 min 8 sec ago
But... the last is only not the case with drivers on normal roads because driving on the cycle path / footway / rolling a vehicle up there is seen...
- wtjs 43 min 36 sec ago
YOU'VE RUINED MY LIFE! WHAT FOR?!...
- mdavidford 1 hour 15 min ago
I think you're missing an opportunity to pack even more tech into it - add accelerometers that can detect whether they're pedalling or stepping....
- chrisonabike 1 hour 39 min ago
Thanks. I guess the question is "need". If the road is busy, it sounds like it is a desired route between places? In which case (given this an...
- mdavidford 1 hour 47 min ago
Don't know what you mean. I thought my suggestion was entirely practical.
- mdavidford 1 hour 50 min ago
...and a square of faux sheepskin for the back of your saddle.
- Rapha Nadal 2 hours 22 min ago
I'd buy a motorbike fo rthat kind of money!
Add new comment
19 comments
The DFT have already shown negligence in regard to this tunnel. The reason for the flooding that is oft quoted as a reason to fill it in? Read the link below. No chance that this was an act of deliberate sabotage, I'm sure.
https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/tunnel-flooded-after-dft-fails-t...
Object to the application and keep the hope of this cycleway alive.
Old railway tunnels make fantastic cycling facilities. We've had one on the local greenway for a few years now and it's the major attraction and has been a major driver of the local economy as people come from all over the country to walk/ride the greenway.
The idea of filling the tunnel with concrete and all the emissions that will generate (probably not accounted for in the cost) versus something that can make a positive contribution to active travel is just obscene
If Bradford doesn't want this tunnel, we could do with it under the Thames. Put on a lorry and bring it down here. (London gets everything else, I don't see why we shouldn't have your tunnels as well.)
One of the 44 ‘support’ messages supported keeping the tunnel open, they just got the polarity wrong. Didn’t come across any other ‘support ‘ messages when reading comments.
edit to add - found another support. Wanting tunnel to be saved, so also got things the wrong way round. I wonder if online petitions are a factor in this mistake, where people are encouraged to support the position of the petitioner?
To be fair to Bradford Council, they're pretty supportive of converting the tunnel to a cycle path. The application is from Highways England.
Lots of objections are needed to convince the Government to provide the investment for the work.
Signed but I don't know where they are getting the figures from. If it will take 3.5mil to just fill it with concrete, and currently it is unsafe and from the video very flooded at one end, how will 11.5 make it safe and usable for 30 years?
Plus I don't know if I would fancy riding through a tunnel for over a mile.
I cycled through the 2km Old Caoling bikeway tunnel in Taiwan last November. It was fantastic. Not a hint of claustrophobia, but it helped that it was lit.
The longer of the Two Tunnels route outside of Bath is 1.6km long and great to cycle through, done it many times with my young family.
This project is a no brainer, with no downsides as far as I can see... so probably won't happen.
Still as long as there is money for HS2 or a pointless tunnel under Stonehenge.
As some one who has been stuck in traffic on the A303 a tunnel under Stonehenge is far from pointless.
What's the old saying, 'you're not stuck in traffic, you are traffic'.
My point was the money wasted on a tunnel is pointless when you could easily dual carriageway the existing road and use the spoil to build a embankment to hide the road from the stones and stop the stones from distracting drivers.
And for English Heritage to say they want to return the landscape to how it was, well pull down the stones because they weren't always there, and the bloody things were put back up and concreted in, back in the nineteenth century anyway so the whole thing is a farce.
It'd be really hard to turn the existing road into a dual carriageway. Part of it runs through a village, so you'd have to flatten that for starters. The locals would be none too keen.
And if you think the archeological/historical/environmental groups have voice strong onjections to the tunnel. just wait until your plan gets an airing. The area around Stonehenge has numerous other sites of archeological importance and it's thought that there are many still undiscovered. That's why the tunnel was proposed, so that these would not be disturbed.
Just seems like a complete no-brainer to use the tunnel as a cycle route. How cool would that be? And one of the longest cycle tunnels in the UK/world?
I don't like the way they publish names and adresses for the commenters.
Anyhow, I've left an objection.
Filled in the objection. Heartened to see out of 1000+ only 44 were for shutting the tunnel.
The current count is:
Objections: 1928
Supporting: 48
Keep at it folks!
Commented
I’ve left my objection comments on the council website planning portal. I would encourage all road.cc readers to do the same - and get friends and anyone you know locally to do the same - pass on to your local Cycling Campaigners and get them to do the same. A huge number of comments on a planning application has the power to sway a council - they usually get very few and just do what they want. Help make a difference.
PP
Link to council planning portal
I certainly wouldn't want it to be allowed to collapse if I was a resident. It also seems a huge waste to do so. Surely it wouldn't cost so much to be repaired? It's an asset that can be used for cycle transport.
I used to work in a town that'd been heavily mined for coal to the south of Edinburgh (Loanhead if you must know). The road leading into the town suffered badly from subsidence due to the old shafts in the area. The shafts fr the nearby pit (Bilston Glen) were well-documented but there were a lot of shallower shfats, some of which dated back to Victorian times, and no-one knew exactly where they all were. I remember distinctly when a colleague of mine came into work one Monday morning looking rather shocked. His garden and his neighbour's had disappeared down a big hole that'd opened up over the weekend.