Interchange to re-open one year after it was closed

But when it does, there will still be sections of the station closed off – as resurfacing work that was being carried out before the emergency closure on January 5 this year has not been completed.

Next Thursday, members of West Yorkshire Combined Authority – the organisation which owns and runs the Interchange, will finally be given details of when it can reopen.

Members will be told that on Sunday, January 5 the city’s bus station will finally re-open after 12 months of disruption.

Jacobs Well car park, used for bus layovers since January, will re-open to the public at the same time.

The station’s indoor concourse, which has been closed off to the thousands of rail users who use the interchange every day, will re-open as soon as Monday.

The Interchange was closed in January after a lump of concrete fell from the structure into an underground car park area.

Since then there have been numerous surveys to see if there were wider structural issues with the bus interchange – essentially a huge concrete slab above a car park and retail units.

The closure has led to major disruption, with bus routes diverted and stops dotted around the city centre.

New bus shelters that were part of the ongoing Transforming Cities Fund work to re-shape the city centre, shelters which were only ever intended to be second or penultimate stops for bus routes, have been operating as bus terminals.

At a meeting of WYCA last month members heard that if certain measures were put in place, it would be safe to open the Interchange in early 2025.

Bradford Interchange (Image: T&A)

However, the station is still operating beyond its 50-year life expectancy – and plans would need to be in place for a replacement station in the coming years.

At a meeting on Thursday, members will be given more details.

A report to members says: “Early indications show that a limited service could begin on Sunday 5 January 2025 and operators are now working with the Combined Authority to establish which services can be taken into the Interchange from that date.”

It points out that resurfacing work that started in 2022 is still incomplete due to the yearlong closure, and will need to be finished before 100 per cent of the station can be reopened.

It adds: “The resurfacing works will continue into 2025 and therefore six bus stands will be unavailable for use until this work is complete. The detail of which services will return and which will stay on-street is yet to be determined as operators go through the process of working through timetables, driver duties and registering services with the Traffic Commissioner to ensure this is done as seamlessly as possible.

“Not all services will return to the Interchange on 5 January 2025 and the longer-term view regarding which ones will remain on-street is yet to be determined.

“Real time information will not be available to customers on January 5 and passengers will see that RTI screens will be switched off for at least the month of January. This is due to the huge amount of additional data input required into the system at a time where large-scale service changes for Christmas results in the busiest period for the Combined Authority across the Yorkshire region.”

The Interchange’s rail passengers will be able to use the lower concourse of the building for the first time since January when it re-opens after the morning commute on Monday October 28th (from midday) as part of a phased reopening of the wider structure.

Since the closure, access to the rail section of the Interchange has been either via street level or a ramp at the side of the station.

With the concourse reopening there will now be life and escalator access as well as access to the building’s public toilets.

The future of the tenants of units in the Interchange, including Greggs and WH Smith, will be discussed in a section of the meeting where the press and public will be excluded due to “commercial confidentiality.”

Work is currently underway to create a new plaza outside the station.