BRADFORD is making good progress in getting people out of their cars and onto trains, buses and bicycles - despite a setback in plans for a rail link to Leeds Bradford Airport, a meeting heard.

Councillors tonight welcomed a transport planning manager's upbeat report about investment, particularly on the railways.

Neil Moore, senior transport manager with the council, told a scrutiny committee of councillors about rail passenger growth in Bradford.

The numbers travelling by train in the Bradford district is continuing to rise, with 15.2 million journeys made to/from stations in 2014/15, up 3.3 per cent on the previous year.

All stations except Bradford Interchange recorded passenger growth over the past year with Baildon and Crossflatts seeing numbers increase over 10 per cent.

However, the majority of journeys into Bradford city centre in the morning are made by car (70.7 per cent) and bus (17.2 per cent), with rail accounting for 7.4 per cent.

Compared with Leeds, the numbers driving into Bradford remained high, he said.

Councillor Kevin Warnes (Green, Shipley), deputy chairman of the committee, said Mr Moore's transport report was "packed with really good news" which suggested Bradford was moving towards an improved take up in low-carbon transport.

The council's transport boss, Councillor Val Slater, told the committee parking costs in Leeds had discouraged car drivers.

"I used to drive into Leeds every day, but now I would not dream of doing so," she said.

Mr Moore told the committee that the new station at Apperley Bridge had been a success since it opened in December.

A recent traffic survey counted 369 vehicles accessing the station during the day. Of these, 189 were parked which accounts for 64 per cent of the available spaces.

Councillors welcomed progress on work on a new station and car park at Low Moor, despite the discovery of a previously unrecorded mine shaft which has pushed back the opening by at least three months. Work on the £10.8m project is now due to be completed in July.

But concern was expressed over the future of a proposed train/tram or light rail link to Leeds Bradford Airport.

Mr Moore said a recent report to the West Yorkshire Combined Authority had concluded that constructing a fixed link would be "extremely challenging" as gradients exceed those of any current light rail system.

Despite this setback, the council has restated its commitment to a fixed rail link.

Cllr Slater said such a link would help Bradford workers reach a proposed new business park at the airport.

She said a rail link would impress investors who flew into the airport for meetings in Bradford.

"When trying to attract business to Bradford, people don't want to fly to Leeds Bradford to get on a bus and be taken around housing estates, or a taxi through housing estates.

"They expect to get very quickly to the centre of where they are going."

She said transport links to the airport would remain a "top priority".

"It has been a priority for a number of years. I was very disappointed when they came back with the gradient problem. I have been up and down the Andes via train."

She added: "We haven't given up. It is one of my top priorities."

Councillors asked officers for a further update in a year on transport developments.