CAMPAIGNERS are uniting in a final push for a high-speed rail station in Bradford city centre, as a crucial decision nears.

Business leaders, council bosses and school children gathered in City Park today to unveil a joint, cross-party campaign to win over transport chiefs, called Next Stop Bradford.

Bradford Council leader, Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, said: “This is a really crucial time for us to put our best foot forward.”

She said a stop could add £1.3bn to the city's economy, saying they had invited along Year 7 schoolchildren from Carlton Bolling College to drive home the point that it would be an investment in their future.

Momentum has been growing behind the idea of including Bradford on a planned new high-speed link from Manchester to Leeds, dubbed Northern Powerhouse Rail, and a key recommendation to Government is due later this spring.

Earlier this year, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said they needed “to make sure that Bradford is a part of this project”, and a Bradford station has also won the support of Northern Powerhouse Minister Andrew Percy and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

But local figures are determined that a more expensive city-centre stop, rather than a parkway station in a suburb, would offer the greatest benefits.

Sandy Needham, chief executive of the West and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, said a city-centre stop would greatly improve the “really poor” rail links between Leeds and Bradford, benefitting both cities.

She said a parkway station would be less easy for people to use.

Councillor Simon Cooke, leader of the opposition Conservatives on Bradford Council, said the support from Government was welcome but they needed to keep the pressure up.

He said: “We have got to keep convincing the Government, and we have got to convince the boffins, the civil servants, the people who do the numbers.”

The Government has given working group Transport for the North £60m to develop a full blueprint for the line and its recommendations are expected later this spring.

Campaigners have been buoyed by news that TfN has already found that a Bradford station would still allow them to meet their key target of slashing journey times between Leeds and Manchester to 30 minutes.

TfN is now conducting a more detailed study, looking at both the feasibility and the likely costs of various options.

There are three main choices: no stop for Bradford, a parkway station in a suburb or a city-centre station.

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The West Yorkshire Combined Authority, which is lobbying for a city-centre stop, has separately commissioned consultants Arup to strengthen the business case for a central station.

As exclusively revealed by the Telegraph & Argus last month, this option could include laying a high-speed line underneath the existing city, using tunnels or cuttings, and building a new underground high-speed platform beneath Bradford Interchange.

The £20,000 report is due back shortly.

Council chiefs yesterday released a new artist’s impression of how a high-speed station at Bradford Interchange could look.

But Councillor Alex Ross-Shaw, who leads on transport at Bradford Council, denied reports that Bradford Council had bought the NCP car park in Hall Ings in readiness to widen the Interchange.

He declined to comment on whether they were attempting to purchase it and NCP did not respond to requests for a comment.

Cllr Ross-Shaw praised the cross-party aspect of the campaign, saying: “It has been really good. We have worked really well together, including the MPs.”