Passengers will begin using a new, state-of-the-art concourse at Bradford Interchange on Sunday as the station's £2.7 million refurbishment nears completion.

A year of massive disruption, in which some buses moved out of the travel centre and others switched to different stands, is drawing to a close.

Transport chiefs say they are delighted they have been able to keep the station - which serves 24,000 passengers a day - open throughout.

But the bad news for West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Authority (PTA) is that engineers discovered during the work that a waterproof layer on part of the station had come away from the concrete, allowing large amounts of water to get in.

Work to rectify it will cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, but the PTA has decided it must go ahead.

The new concourse will open to hundreds of passengers on Sunday when buses from stands A2 to A24 and B and C will move in.

Stands D to N will not be affected and transport chiefs say it will be several weeks before all buses are moved.

The concourse, which will be completed in May, will feature new close circuit television systems which will have 24 hour-monitoring from a control centre based at Metro's Wellington House headquarters in Leeds. There will also be new signs, seats, anti-slip floors, a public address system and electronic information boards.

Architects had to go back to the drawing boards last year when it was discovered the bays were not long enough to take the new "bendy" articulated buses. Now drive- through bays have been included for them.

The refurbishment scheme is the biggest carried out by the Passenger Transport Authority, which undertook a smaller refurbishment in Leeds.

The Interchange was designed in the 1960s and opened in 1972 as a European showpiece. The ground concourse was refurbished several years ago. Bradford councillor and PTA member Ann Ozolins said: "I am absolutely delighted we are reaching the final stage. It will complement all the new city centre developments."

The Rev Geoffrey Reid, a member of Bradford's passenger consultative committee, said: "There have been one or two traumas and we have learned a lot. But I am very happy that it is in use."