9:51pm Thursday 13th September 2007
By Jenny Loweth
Low Moor will get a new £3 million railway station, residents were assured tonight.
Metro director of development David Hogarth made the pledge at a well-attended public meeting organised by Bradford Rail Users' Group (BRUG).
The meeting, at Morley Carr Working Men's Club in New Works Road, Low Moor, Bradford, was called to debate ways of speeding up the reopening.
Mr Hogarth assured residents that the station, closed to passengers in 1965, was on Metro's priority list of four stations to be reopened in West Yorkshire.
He said Network Rail and Northern Rail were "important partners in the overall jigsaw" of what was a complex project.
He said the new £3 million station would be concrete-based with shelters, ramps for easy access, electronic timetables and a car park for more than 100 vehicles. Work was set to start on the project in 2004 but it was delayed after rail refranchising caused timetable problems.
Mr Hogarth said that trains from Leeds and Manchester would have become unreliable if an extra stop had been put in.
Mr Hogarth said that up to four ideas were being considered to solve the timetabling dilemma. He said detailed plans had already been drawn up and negotiations started with Bradford Council to acquire land for the project.
The meeting heard that half-hourly stops would be needed to make the station viable.
Dr Jim Jennings, who chaired the meeting, said it would be more of a "halt". The platforms might not be opposite one another and there would be no ticket office.
He estimated that Bradford would be a six-minute journey, Halifax ten minutes, Leeds 27, Huddersfield 20 and Manchester one hour and ten minutes.
He said the station would be in easy walking distance for many people and would cut road congestion in the area.
Bradford South MP Gerry Sutcliffe has pledged his backing for the new station.
He has sent a letter of support to BRUG, stating that the lack of progress was unacceptable and that he had been lobbying Metro to speed up the process.
BRUG member Philip Tordoff, 69, of Cleckheaton, said he had gone to the meeting to support the reopening campaign.
He told the Telegraph & Argus he remembered travelling by steam train from his home in Cleckheaton to Low Moor Station to visit his grandparents. The retired music teacher said it had been an important rail junction with engine sheds.
Passengers could get to Halifax, Manchester, Bradford, Leeds, Spen Valley and Huddersfield. "It was a period piece," he said.
e-mail: jenny.loweth @bradford.newsquest.co.uk
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