No10 considering mayor powers that could speed up West Yorkshire trams 'by years'

Exclusive:West Yorkshire mass transit: No10 considering handing down extra powers to mayors to speed up tram project

A new paper from the Centre for British Progress and ThinkLabour has found that handing over bureaucratic approvals could cut the West Yorkshire tram timetable by several years.

Andy Burnham is considering handing mayors additional powers to speed up mass transit projects in the Budget, as a new research paper found this could cut several years off the timetable of West Yorkshire’s trams.

Mayor Tracy Brabin has staked her reputation on bringing mass transit 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).

Campaigners have called on Andy Burnham to deliver a West Yorkshire mass transit system.

A new paper from the Centre for British Progress and ThinkLabour, shared exclusively with The Yorkshire Post, has found that handing over bureaucratic approvals could cut the timetable by several years.

Kane Emerson, one of the authors from the CBP, said: “The best case study of where our proposals would fix things is actually the Leeds tram.

“In the 2025 Budget, Leeds was given the power to retain some business rates to help fund the West Yorkshire mass transit that Tracy Brabin wants to build.

“The big blocker isn’t just the money, the money is good and the government is devolving many important powers around funding.

“One of the key blockers is quite a boring instrument called a Transport and Works Act Order (TWAO), and that is the consent for building something like a tram.”

An artists impression for the West Yorkshire mass transit scheme.

In 2013, Leeds City Council applied for TWAO and it took a further three years for the Government to reject it.

Earlier in the year, then-chancellor Rachel Reeves announced that the Treasury and the Department for Transport would consult on devolving this, with an announcement likely in the Budget.

The research also calls for powers to approve development consent orders, which is required to build nationally significant infrastructure like a tram network.

“This could shorten timescales by a few years because it means that Leeds can make the decision rather than sending it off to Whitehall,” Mr Emerson said.

“If Tracy Brabin had these powers then arguably the tram would be much further advanced, and Leeds may have had a tram by now.”

The Yorkshire Post understands that No10 is considering passing on these powers in the Budget.

Chancellor John Healey is expected to continue the Prime Minister’s devolution agenda when he makes the fiscal statement on October 28.

One of the Mr Burnham’s first acts as Prime Minister was to confirm that mayors would be able to retain a proportion of income tax and business rates, giving them greater flexibility over spending and borrowing.

“This Budget coming up will have a lot of devolution announcements,” Mr Emerson added.

“There has been a lot of lobbying from the mayoralties so we’re really hoping this power is included, and we think there is a good chance it is.

“If mayors are to be accountable for local areas and growth in the regions then they need to be given actual powers.”