PHOTOGRAPHS have emerged showing the extent of controversial works in Queensbury Tunnel which campaigners want to reopen as an active travel route.

Queensbury Tunnel would serve as a strategic link in the proposed Bradford-Halifax Greenway. But National Highways, which manages 3,100 disused railway structures, is seeking planning permission to partly infill the 144-year-old engineering feat.

Enabling works, which started in October 2018, were originally programmed to last three months and cost £550,000, but they had to be extended after it is alleged National Highways failed to pay the £50 annual rent on a pumping station which kept the 1.4-mile long tunnel dewatered. Flooding resulted in costs mushrooming to almost £7.3 million, with the contractor remaining on site for three years.

The photographs, taken by explorers, show the tunnel blocked in two places. In October 2019, National Highways tipped hundreds of tonnes of stone down No 2 shaft, close to the tunnel’s southern end.

Around 300 metres further north, grout-filled steel baskets have been assembled to support No 3 Shaft which inspection reports recorded as being in fair condition. The work took place last summer when floodwater in the tunnel was at its lowest point, but materials still had to be installed by divers. The project is believed to have cost around £2.8 million.

Elsewhere, steel mesh panels and sprayed concrete have been used to strengthen sections of the tunnel’s lining and ‘colliery arches’ erected to provide access beneath areas where brickwork collapses have occurred.

Norah McWilliam, leader of the Queensbury Tunnel Society, said: “Sadly, the photographs capture a missed opportunity. Spent appropriately, £7.3 million could have been used to repair much of the tunnel and bring closer its rehabilitation for public benefit. Instead that money has largely been wasted on works that would not have been necessary if National Highways had paid the rent on the pumping station.

Graeme Bickerdike, Engineering Co-ordinator for the Queensbury Tunnel Society, said: “This scheme was flawed from the outset and National Highways’ failings have ensured that the taxpayer has received very little value for money.”

National Highways head of Historical Railways Estate programme Hélène Rossiter said: “We have carried out vital interventions to keep Queensbury Tunnel safe while the Department for Transport (DfT), local authorities and West Yorkshire Combined Authority consider how they might use it in the future.

“In recent months we’ve worked closely with DfT and stakeholders from across the heritage sector to identify where structures, including Queensbury Tunnel, could be used as part of active travel plans in the future.

“We’ll continue to support repurposing of the structures we look after wherever there’s an opportunity to do so.”