Leeds United: Accelerate plans for Elland Road trams to 'kick off' mass transit momentum, club director urges
Running trams to Leeds United’s expanded Elland Road stadium should be accelerated as a way to “kick off” momentum for the wider West Yorkshire mass transit scheme and regeneration work around the ground, a club board member has said.
Leeds United director Peter Lowy has suggested a line connecting the city centre’s railway station to the White Rose Shopping Centre via Elland Road could be treated as a “discrete” initial project to the wider scheme - and called for the pace of the project to be speeded up.
With initial construction work already under way on expanding Elland Road to an eventual 53,000 seats, Mr Lowy said wider redevelopment around the ground due to include 2,500 new homes, new offices, a hotel, a convention centre and a neighbourhood shopping centre could be done within a decade - depending on the potential tram line.
The prospective opening date for the £2.5bn mass transit scheme is currently the late 2030s, with a business case due to be submitted to the Government this year.
But Mr Lowy, whose development company was previously involved in regeneration work around the London Olympic Village site, told an event in Leeds on Tuesday: “We can’t sit around until 2035 to start this. I’m not that patient. I’m 67 years old. I don’t want to be 77 years old, still talking to you about what we are going to do. We’re ready to do it and the quicker the government can work with us - the quicker they start, the quicker we can start.”
The official ‘Phase 1’ of the project is due to look at trams between Bradford and Leeds as well as from south Leeds to the city centre. A business case is due to be submitted to the Department for Transport later this year.
The Elland Road route would fall into the south Leeds category and Mr Lowy said it could become ‘Phase 1A’ due to its potential and its ability to facilitate wider regeneration work around the stadium.
He made the comments as Leeds United’s development partner the Lowy Family Group officially signed a memorandum of understanding with Leeds City Council and Tracy Brabin’s West Yorkshire Combined Authority at the UK Real Estate and Infrastructure Forum (UKREiiF) event.
Mr Lowy said: “We need light rail tram to the site from the centre of the city and down to White Rose. Without it, we won’t have the ability to develop the site. It is the most strategic thing the city can do.
“That can kick off the wider region to allow it to have its mass transit. This is a discrete project that can have its own business case.
“I know the bureaucracy needs a major business case but I could do it for you in one page. If you can get Tracy’s Tram, we will have at least a million riders a year because we will have 50,000 people coming to the stadium for 19 or 20 games. It is a pretty good base to start from.
“If we can get the government to start with what is a complex issue on something that is discrete and relatively simple you actually generate the momentum to deal with all the complex issues between Leeds and Bradford.”
Ms Brabin said Keir Starmer has recently given his backing to the tram concept and that he’d said the current slowness of delivery is ‘ridiculous’.
She told Mr Lowy: “We have all the political backing, we just need to make sure we can be innovative and dynamic in the process so whether’s that phasing, however we do it, your success is my success and we are going to deliver that tram. I’m so excited about this MoU and the way we can work, bringing together partners like a dynamic start-up so we actually deliver the project before we both drop dead.”