No10 North taskforce set up to speed up West Yorkshire mass transit

Trac Brabin and other figures, such as Leeds United director Peter Lowy and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner, have been critical of the timescale of the project and the bureaucracy.

A special taskforce has been set up at Andy Burnham’s No10 North to try and speed up delivery of West Yorkshire’s mass transit project.

Mayor Tracy Brabin has staked her reputation on bringing trams back to the streets of Leeds and Bradford as part of a £2.5bn project.

She has pledged to get spades in the ground by 2028 and have trams running towards the end of the 2030s, with routes from Leeds station down to Elland Road and west to Bradford.

However, Ms Brabin and other figures, such as Leeds United director Peter Lowy and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner, have been critical of the timescale of the project and the bureaucracy.

The completion date was pushed back after a critical review by Treasury body, the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (Nista).

This instructed WYCA to change its approach, which delayed work on the route and planning process.

Controversy also emerged after The Yorkshire Post revealed last year that civil servants could overrule Ms Brabin and turn the mass transit system into a bus network.

However, Ms Brabin said there has already been a change in attitude since Mr Burnham has entered Downing Street.

She joined a meeting of his National Economic Council from No10 North in Manchester, and gave the tram as one of her three priorities.

Ms Brabin said Mr Burnham’s deputy chief of staff Caroline Simpson immediately set up a special taskforce to speed up delivery.

This is “going to look at what can we do to ensure greater speed, whilst also keeping the oversight of a project of this scale”, she said.

“It's not just significant for us regionally; it's also nationally significant for the prime minister and his growth in every postcode.”

This included representatives from No10 North, the Department for Transport and the Treasury including Minister for Growth Dan Tomlinson.

“Everybody that you would imagine was there that needed to be there, and we were really problem solving live in the moment,” Ms Brain said.

“We have got the read-out now and we're going back again to see the next steps.”

Ms Brabin revealed that West Yorkshire Combined Authority would be targeting officials with experience around mass transit as part of the civil service secondment scheme.

She said they have had a “really positive response to that call”.

“We've got colleagues coming in as well, so it feels like we've got the backing of government and we're in partnership.”

This comes as the veteran Leeds North West MP Fabian Hamilton said that previously “there is an ignorance at the heart of government about” the need for a tram in Leeds.

He recalled pushing for one when Sir Tony Blair was prime minister only to be told by the then transport secretary Alistair Darling “you’ve got to use buses”.

He claimed that Sir Tony didn’t even know that buses in Leeds were deregulated, unlike in London.

Mr Hamilton said that he thinks the chances of a West Yorkshire mass transit network “are better than they were”, before adding: “Tracy’s a fighter and she’s not going to give up.”