Campaigners seek judicial review to save Queensbury Tunnel
A judicial review would see judges examine the lawfulness of the decision.Norah McWilliam, leader of the society, said: "We are talking about seven-and-a-half million pounds to permanently destroy the tunnel."Her (the minister's) reason is that there's a safety issue, which we don't accept."The only way to do it is to close the tunnel, which we don't accept."She said there isn't any money to restore the tunnel. We accept that, but there could be at some point in the future."The tunnel could just be left as it is, there is no urgency."She said the society needed to raise £6,500 initially to allow solicitors to prepare a submission to start the case for a judicial review.She said: "If we progress through to a judicial review then it would cost a hell of a lot of money, around £60,000."
The DfT said the continued deterioration of the Queensbury Tunnel meant National Highways had been instructed to carry out works to maintain public safety.The absence of local funding to develop it as a transport link was also a factor in the decision-making process, a spokesperson said.
Re-use of the tunnel as a greenway was first proposed as a Tour de France legacy scheme in 2014 after the Grand Départ of the world-famous cycle race was held in Yorkshire.National Highways inherited the tunnel after the privatisation of British Rail and abandonment would reduce its liabilities.Between 2018 and 2021 it spent £7.2m on strengthening the tunnel, saying the work would "prevent further uncontrolled collapses, ensuring that any future plans for the re-use of the structure can be realised".But it started filling the 1.4-mile (2.25km) tunnel with gravel in 2021 to prevent collapse.
Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
8 hours ago
- The Guardian
Train operators allowed to run more east coast mainline services to Glasgow, Hull and Bradford
Private train operators will be allowed to run extra services on the east coast mainline from London to Glasgow, Hull and Bradford, Britain's rail regulator has ruled. The decision to give additional paths to three existing companies comes in spite of concerns about capacity and the impact on taxpayer-funded services, with the main operator on the line, LNER, preparing to run faster intercity trains. The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) approved plans from the First Group-owned Lumo to extend some of its London-Edinburgh services to Glasgow and add another Newcastle daily return, while its Hull Trains operation gets another daily return service. Arriva's Grand Central will also be allowed to run more trains from the capital to Bradford. But the regulator knocked back part of the operators' applications, including a new direct London King's Cross to Sheffield service from First, on the basis of 'insufficient capacity and potential performance impacts, or impact on the secretary of state's funds'. Open access operations have been allowed space to continue despite the nationalisation of all leading passenger train services under the planned Great British Railways. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion While Labour had decided against eliminating open access, which has run popular routes to northern towns, the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, had signalled to the ORR that it should prioritise the needs of state-funded trains and overall performance in considering the proposals. The state-owned LNER is set to bring in a major timetable change in December, one which has already been postponed for a year over concerns about the railway's readiness and congestion, cutting London to Edinburgh journey times. Stephanie Tobyn, the ORR director of strategy, policy and reform, said: 'Approving these additional open access services will increase connectivity on the east coast mainline. 'Importantly, we have ensured the approval of these services can be accommodated alongside the major service uplifts by other operators, which have been planned into the December 2025 timetable, so together passengers and freight customers can benefit from more direct connections and greater choice from December.' The First Group chief executive, Graham Sutherland, said: 'We are pleased to have been awarded the extensions to our successful open access rail operations. This is an important step in our efforts to materially grow our open access business and will allow us to build on the substantial benefits we are making to the communities we serve, and to attract even more passengers to rail.'
Times
21 hours ago
- Times
Getting railways on track is some task
That's the trains for you. Have a squint at the government publicity for its new transport quango and there's some Union Jack-flagged graphic, saying: 'Great British Railways — coming soon'. Only soon? What's the problem this time? Signal failure? Leaves on the line? The wrong kind of snow? None of them, apparently. Just the time it takes to pass into law the Railways Bill. It will, the government says, create a 'single 'directing mind' bringing track and train together', with GBR running a largely state-owned passenger railway, even if the rolling stock and freight companies will stay private. Already ministers are taking back control of what once were 14 private passenger franchises, most recently South Western and C2C, when their contracts expire. Listen to Heidi Alexander's transport department and GBR will end 'decades of fragmentation and private profiteering'. Yet, you shouldn't really need a new report from Tony Lodge at the Centre for Policy Studies to spot that GBR — a product of Labour's state-knows-best mentality — risks 'morphing into the ghost of British Rail'. Or that it seems a 'solution looking for a problem': one prioritising rail nationalisation above 'efficient operation'. Ministers' antipathy to private 'open access' operators, running without government contracts or subsidy — Hull Trains, Lumo and Grand Central, say, on the east coast line — tells you that. • Virgin Trains' attempt to get back on to the railways blocked Sure, privatisation had its faults, the most glaring the separation of train and track. And some of the passenger growth would have happened anyway. Yet, as Lodge points out, in the two decades up to the pandemic, passenger journeys rose by 107 per cent, services were up by 32 per cent and the private sector invested £14 billion in new trains. Of course, some private outfits failed. A former Labour government shunted Railtrack into the buffers, aghast at its £7 billion of debts, even if its state-owned successor, Network Rail, now has a net £61 billion. Then, there was a trio of financial derailments on the East Coast line: GNER, National Express and Virgin Trains. Yet, franchising largely worked until ministers started to micro-manage it, while also requiring train operators bidding for contracts to forecast the economy 15 years out: a feat patently beyond the Treasury, the Bank of England or the Office for Budget Responsibility. Whether in public or private hands, three problems stand out: the railways need too much subsidy, given they account for just 2 per cent of passenger journeys; capacity is not being used efficiently enough; and ticketing is a mess, with many fares too pricey. All are interrelated. But there's nothing yet from Alexander or GBR to address them. The operational railway needed £12.5 billion of taxpayer subsidy in the year to March 2024 (the latest figures): up by £4.6 billion versus the year to March 2020. A key reason? That even if passenger numbers are nearly back to pre-pandemic levels, working from home has killed season ticket sales — 13 per cent of journeys in the year to March 2025 versus 34 per cent pre-Covid. As Lodge points out, that puts the emphasis on three things: new income streams, such as exploiting rail's 52,000-hectare estate to use unused land for everything from solar power to property schemes; shifting capacity from commuters to leisure travellers; and a simplified ticketing app that includes such innovations as a loyalty scheme. He says 'one of GBR's first tasks should be to carry out a full train utilisation study' to match capacity to 'in-demand' services. And he's right that, here, the government is showing 'misguided hostility' to open-access operators. Private companies are far more likely than civil servants to spot a gap in the market for a new service. And the latest annual figures from the state-backed LNER suggest that, rather than eat into its sales, competition on the east coast is driving them up — from £867 million to top £1 billion. Notably, while Britain clamps down on open access, Europe is going in the opposite direction, with France, Spain and Italy finding it cuts fares and lifts service frequency. What, too, of the political risk with GBR? As Lodge notes: 'Creating GBR gives ministers both complete responsibility for the railway and all of the blame' — not least if the unions bring the network to a halt. Alexander is far from proving that her new quango is the best route to getting the railways back on track. Luckily, Rachel Reeves's budget was ingeniously designed to have no impact on 'working people'. So, she won't have to worry about the latest 'Red Flag Alert' report from Begbies Traynor, the business rescue and recovery outfit. It's found that nearly 50,000 UK companies are on the brink of keeling over — up 21.4 per cent on 2024's second quarter. True, as the Begbies boss, Ric Traynor, notes, 'tariffs' and 'geopolitical uncertainty' haven't helped. But 'businesses across the UK are being put under immense strain by the increases to employers' NI' and 'the national minimum wage', with consumer sectors such as bars and restaurants, tourism and retailers particularly hard hit. Still, what a relief for Reeves that working people don't do those sorts of jobs. One day is a bit quick to judge what the EC's Ursula von der Leyen hailed as 'the biggest trade deal ever'. But, having locked in 15 per cent tariffs on most US imports from the EU, the euro fell by 1 per cent-plus against the dollar, Germany's Dax dropped by a similar amount, with France's Cac also down, while the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, spoke of the 'considerable damage' to come. As for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, they touched intra-day highs. An inescapable day one verdict: Von der Leyen's been trumped.
The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Golfing Trump and football comes home: photos of the day
People gather as a C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft drops humanitarian aid on the northern Gaza Strip Photograph: Bashar Taleb/AFP/Getty Images People walk past a mobile ad van that displays a photograph of the US president, Donald Trump, and the disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in protest at Trump's visit Photograph: Hannah McKay/Reuters Tourists from all over the world packed on the Seceda cable car, which takes them to the summit from the town centre Photograph:People watch a boxing match between two remote-controlled robots by Unitree Robotics during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference Photograph: Héctor Retamal/AFP/Getty Images A 25-year-old Palestinian suffering from severe malnutrition and bone loss in the Nuseirat refugee camp amid worsening hunger in the region Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images Personnel from Deutsche Bahn at the site where a local passenger train derailed on Sunday, leaving three people dead and others seriously injured Photograph: Angelika Warmuth/Reuters Dancers performing the cancan in front of the Moulin Rouge to cheer passing cyclists during the final stage of the Tour de France Photograph:Clover, a miniature American shepherd, shows off frisbee skills during Wild Wild Woof: a SuperDogs Country & Western Spectacle at the 2025 K-Days festival Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images Tower Bridge is lit up red, white and blue on Sunday night to congratulate the England women's football team winning the Uefa women's Euro 2025 competition by beating Spain in a penalty shootout in Basel, Switzerland Photograph: James Weech/PA A drone view shows the aftermath of a wildfire Photograph: Florion Goga/Reuters Residents and firefighters attempt to extinguish a wildfire as smoke and flames rise from a forested area in the Gürsu district Photograph: AFP/Getty Images Troops march during a parade commemorating the anniversary of the Korean war armistice Photograph: KCNA/Reuters Palestinians who were shot while seeking aid at a US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution point being transported away by bike Photograph: Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images People take shelter inside a metro station during a Russian drone strike Photograph: Reuters Donald Trump plays a round of golf at his Trump Turnberry golf course during his visit to the UK Photograph:Chloe Kelly of England celebrates with teammates following the team's victory in the penalty shootout to win Euro 2025 Photograph:England fans have their arms in the air after Chloe Kelly scores the winning penalty to win the Euro 2025 final between England and Spain Photograph:
