Friends of the TPT Trustees visit Leeds

The Trustees of the Friends of the Trans Pennine Trail met in Leeds for a rare get-together on 1 July. Regular Board meetings are held online these days but it is useful to meet in-person from time to time to look at upcoming challenges and how the Friends can best support the TPT National Office.

The meeting provided an opportunity to take a close look at the developing cycling, walking and wheeling infrastructure in Leeds and how the TPT can be linked into it.

     Leeds has an aspiration to develop a comprehensive cycling infrastructure shown on this “tube map”.

The layout includes a central “box” surrounding the central shopping district and it was from here that the Board set off to explore new links to the TPT.

Passing the newly improved and renamed Leeds Playhouse, the Board followed new bi-directional cycle paths south towards the Royal Armouries. Here there is both a TPT Information Board and a Sustrans milepost. 

The board looked in need of updating to show the current approved TPT route to Leeds Station, while the milepost is still painted yellow, in honour of the 2014 Grand Depart of the Tour de France and would benefit from an artistic facelift.

Any Friends or volunteers with bright ideas and a paintbrush would be warmly welcomed here.

Moving west from the Royal Armouries along the new TPT link, which is shared with NCN 66 for the first kilometre or so, the Board passed the newly reopened Tetley Brewery building and Sustrans’ Leeds office, to the new Aire Park with its eye-catching sculpture “Hibiscus Rising”.

This work by Yinka Shonibare was unveiled in November 2023 in memory of David Oluwale, a homeless man whose death in 1969 implicated two members of the then, Leeds City Police.

From here the new TPT route leaves NCN 66 and turns north across the David Oluwale cycle/footbridge, opened in January 2023.

The bridge leads via a shared use area to a new bi-directional cycle path on Sovereign Street.

At the western end of Sovereign Street the cycle path crosses Neville Street and dives under Leeds Station to access platforms via ramps and a lift at the striking South Entrance opened in 2016.

Here, the River Aire rushes noisily through a channel running beneath the Station in an area always referred to as The Dark Arches.

Board members returned to Neville Street to take in progress on the main entrance to Leeds Station. This is part of the £46m Sustainable Gateway scheme intended to create a people-friendly environment to accommodate increasing rail passenger numbers and is due for completion late in 2025.

Among the many improvements will be a pair of 21-person lifts, giving access to the station level from Neville Street/Bishopsgate Street and a 700-place cycle hub with electric charging points and storage for all types of bikes.

Cycling and walking infrastructure around the station will be further improved and the new station entrance would seem to be an excellent place to advertise the opportunities for active travel beyond Leeds on NCN 66 and the TPT.

The Board agreed there is great potential for attracting users to the TPT in Leeds, in partnership with the City Council but also Network Rail, train operators, Sustrans and West Yorkshire Combined Authority.

The Friends of the TPT might have a role in adding value to ongoing infrastructure improvements including, for example, in the provision of information boards.

Les Webb – Secretary, Friends of the Trans Pennine Trail

Date: 5th July 2024