IN the first of his regular columns for the Telegraph & Argus, Si Cunningham, Chair of Bradford Civic Society, discusses how plans for a new tram line between Bradford and Leeds ties in with previous proposals in decades past.

RECENT news that trams are on track to return to the heart of Bradford will bring one of the city’s oldest and most frustrating challenges back into sharp focus - connecting Forster Square with the Interchange.

Plans to link the two rail termini with a heavy link are said to date back to a time before Bradford even had a Town Hall, and throughout the last century hopes have been raised and dashed as the city went through various wholesale regeneration projects.

Stanley Wardley - mastermind of the notorious post-war Central Plan - certainly made enough space for a ‘Bradford Crossrail’, but quickly filled it with dual carriageways at the altar of the motorcar. More recently, when Wardley’s roads were eventually ripped up to make way for The Broadway, retail won over railways.

And so here we are today, with Bradford Council announcing that its preferred route on the new ‘West Yorkshire Mass Transit Network’ will indeed see rail carriages gliding along tracks in front of The Wool Exchange and City Hall, finally linking Forster Square with the southern city centre, before humming up to Leeds.

There has not been jubilation, it’s fair to say. Perhaps Loiners and Bradfordians have a shared skepticism that we’ve been here before - with enough artists’ impressions of trams and other shiny things to fill a small exhibition. It also doesn’t have a proper name yet, with WYMTN not exactly leaping off the tongue. It’s no Nottingham NET or Sheffield Supertram. Yet, the plans are probably as advanced as they’ve ever been, it’s a key pledge of the Mayor, and big funding promises have been made at a national level.

The catch, of course, is that it’s not the heavy ‘crossrail’ so eagerly pursued by generations of campaigners, and the ultimate vision will see a new mainline station somewhere near St James’ Market replace the Interchange - meaning a tram won’t just be a nice thing for connecting our city rail hubs when it’s raining, but potentially a necessity. More detail is anticipated on this as the new Government sets out its stall on infrastructure spending and plans to ‘renationalise’ the rail network.

Another reason to be optimistic about the latest vision is the changing role of transport - specifically rapid transit - in our cities as a strong catalyst for regeneration and stopping ‘brain drain’ to other, better connected towns. Trams are not just a means to get from A to B, but essential ingredients when pursuing any successful ‘placemaking’ strategy (also known as building stuff that’s useful, and desirable to spend time in). It’s how London’s Canary Wharf went from an industrial wasteland to a shining mini metropolis, and how parts of Nottingham have grown as desirable places to live and work.

In Bradford’s case, it’s easy to see why the so-called ‘Southern Gateway’ project is drawing comparisons with the King’s Cross neighbourhood - a once forgotten and undesirable industrial backwater transformed into a well-connected centre for city living, commerce, education, culture, and research.

For many, this will be a distant and fanciful vision for Bradford that won’t bear fruit for many years to come. For those people, there are some quicker wins on the horizon in 2025...an extra track and platform at Forster Square is taking shape and could see an additional 6 LNER London trains per day from next May. Improvements to the Forster Square arches and newly pedestrianised Market Street will also make the two stations feel much closer together, and it’s not beyond the realms of possibility to imagine autonomous transport having a role to play sooner rather than later too. The reopening of our central bus station and finishing of Transforming Cities will be a huge boost too.

The case for a longer term plan to get the city properly connected is too great to ignore, though, and we may finally be close to righting some of those planning ills in some capacity, be it a fixed tram, a new central station, or both. It’s frustrating to think, even in their current poor state, a combined Forster Square and Interchange would be a busy, seven platform station much more befitting of a city the size of Bradford.

Bradford’s transport history has always been a fascinating insight into its changing fortunes throughout the ages - from plans for heavy rail tunnels, to more recent sketches of a viaduct sweeping alongside Little Germany, to the wonderfully outlandish optimism of a helipad in early plans for the Interchange. None of these things came to pass, but they at least spoke to a city that was ambitious and looking to the future. As the recent unearthing of long-forgotten tram tracks near Centenary Square served as a reminder of what we once had, perhaps the emerging vision of a new tram network at the heart of the city can inspire some future optimism too.