Bus station closure may be extended, meeting hears

The problems at the interchange come as Bradford prepares for its year as City of Culture in 2025

A city centre bus station which was closed earlier in January due to fallen concrete is likely to stay shut for longer than two months, a meeting has heard.

Bradford Interchange was closed for safety reasons on 5 January after a piece of concrete fell into an underground car park the previous month.

The West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) had originally warned the bus station would not reopen before March.

But Bradford councillor Alex Ross-Shaw urged members of the authority to be more upfront with people, saying the work "might take much longer".

There were growing concerns the closure could have an impact on Bradford's year as UK City of Culture in 2025, a meeting of WYCA's transport committee heard on Monday.

A £22m project aimed to create a new entrance to the interchange ahead of the year of celebration, and Mr Ross-Shaw said it was important the problem did not delay this work.

Officers said that while surveys were carried out to assess the damage at the bus station, a temporary bus interchange at nearby Jacobs Well would remain in place for two months and possibly longer.

Work has started to create a new interchange entrance ahead of the City of Culture celebrations

But, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Mr Ross-Shaw told the committee: "You’re saying two months. Presumably the survey is not going to come back and say, ‘everything was all all right'.

“There is going to be time after that survey period where work needs to be done. It is important that is acknowledged.

"People are sensing, because it's not being framed appropriately, that something else is going on.

“Reading between the lines this might take much longer than two months.”

There was a general “frustration” at the lack of information about the situation, Mr Ross-Shaw added.

'We need to plan'

Responding, Simon Warburton, executive director of transport at WYCA, said: “You are absolutely right. At this stage we don’t know for certain the nature of the works that will be needed to put right whatever issue is found there.

"We need to plan for a series of outcomes.

“This two-month period gives us time to work out how we can respond to these different outcomes while safeguarding the presentation of the city centre for Bradford 2025.”

The early inspections "confirmed we were right to take the decisions we took", Mr Warburton said.

Bradford Council leader Susan Hinchcliffe asked for regular updates on the situation at the interchange, adding that it would "require a significant amount of investment to make things right".