BUSINESS leaders in West Yorkshire and beyond have been urged to shout out about why Bradford needs a high-speed rail station.

The call-to-arms came as Yorkshire Building Society hosted a summit about getting the city included on the planned Northern Powerhouse Rail line.

Leeds City Council chief executive Tom Riordan, who said his authority was firmly behind Bradford’s campaign, told the assembled business and civic leaders: “We need your help.”

They were asked to use their networks and lobbying power to drive home the wider benefits for the economy of the North.

Mr Riordan said: “This isn’t a Bradford project, it’s a Northern project, and we have a big challenge in persuading people this is the right thing to do.”

Yorkshire Building Society, which is based in Bradford, held the summit in its Leeds office in a bid to get more businesses from the wider Leeds City Region on board.

The meeting heard it would also be crucial to secure the support of the North West, so the whole of the North could present a united front to Government ministers about how the Leeds to Manchester line should look.

Henri Murison, YBS’ public affairs manager, warned against a “complacent” view that the delivery of the Northern Powerhouse Rail line itself was guaranteed, especially during what he described as the most politically unstable period of his lifetime.

He said: “It is a great idea, it has got massive support behind it, but it is not a done deal.”

He said they also had to win the “hearts and minds” of Northerners if they wanted to keep the rail line - and a stop for Bradford - on top of the political agenda.

He said: “If we can win that battle of hearts and minds, then this will get built.”

Mr Murison said to do this, they needed to tell people how it would improve the lives of the next generation, adding: “What they want to see is what it will mean for their kids’ economic future.”

Fellow panellist Jonathan Mottershead, a senior transport planner at consultancy firm Arup who also used to work on Northern Powerhouse Rail at the Department for Transport, gave an insight into how Government bosses would be weighing up whether to include a Bradford stop on the line.

He said local leaders needed to keep pushing the case, not just for a Bradford stop, but for the whole line itself to be built.

He said in some respects it was “an economist’s dream” for unlocking economic potential, but the physical block of the Pennines and the existing Victorian railway system meant costs would be high.

Mr Mottershead urged business and civic leaders to “be a bit more creative” about their proposals, saying a new Bradford station could be packaged up with a much larger private-sector led redevelopment scheme.

He said this could reduce the cost to the public purse and make it a more attractive proposition for central Government, because “actually it’s not going to be a £1bn station, it’s going to be £200m”.

Bradford Council leader Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, said a city-centre stop would have “massive regeneration and social benefits” for Bradford and said it was important for any cost-benefit analysis to take account of this.

She stressed the need for a city-centre stop rather than a parkway, to finally give the city the through-line its Victorian forefathers had never built.

Mr Riordan said Bradford was a big city, which “we have got to get people to get their heads round”.

He said a quick rail link between Leeds and Bradford would enable both cities to work far more closely together.

He said: “Put Leeds and Bradford together and it’s bigger than Birmingham. In people’s minds it becomes a different opportunity we can take advantage of.”

He said they now had “unprecedented collaboration and consensus between Leeds and Bradford”, and while places like Calderdale and Kirklees might historically have started rival campaigns to Bradford’s, this hadn’t happened with Northern Powerhouse Rail.

He said: “Huddersfield and Halifax recognise if we can do this, it takes pressure off the existing Transpennine services.”

By the end of this year, Transport body Transport for the North is expected to make a recommendation to Government about whether to include Bradford on plans for the line.

A final decision is due in 2018.