Plans to fill in tunnel move forward

The Queensbury Tunnel was last used by a train in the 1950s

National Highways has confirmed it will spend £7.5m filling in Queensbury Tunnel in West Yorkshire, which would prevent it from being converted into the country's longest underground cycleway.

The organisation said the work was necessary to "stabilise the tunnel safely and securely," adding that proposals to restore and reopen the route would cost £22m.

Campaigners from Queensbury Tunnel Society have spent more than a decade developing plans for the 1.4-mile former railway tunnel to be reopened as a greenway that could link Bradford and Calderdale.

But the Department for Transport has supported plans to seal the 1870s structure and said restoration would be too expensive.

National Highways took control of the England's disused former railway structures after the privatisation of British Rail.

The organisation has already spent £7.2m between 2018 and 2021 to strengthen the tunnel to prevent parts of it collapsing.

At the time, the body said the work was to "ensure that any future plans for the structure can be realised".

The organisation has said it would be too expensive to restore the route, but a Queensbury Tunnel Society spokesperson said the £22m figure was excessively high because National Highways want to "gold-plate" the scheme.

The society argued that a study by engineering consultancy AECOM in 2018 found that the tunnel could be repaired for £6.9m.

A heritage board at the site shows an artist's impression of the greenway

Society spokesperson Graeme Bickerdike said: "The £7.5m that is going to be spent on abandonment could be spent on repairs to make it greenway ready.

"What we're proposing is a really ambitious active travel network, and nobody's under illusions about how daunting that is in terms of financing it.

"But you break it down into manageable chunks and spend the money when it's available, rather than the tunnel being lost forever."

National Highways said the tunnel would be stabilised by pumping material into ventilation shafts 400 ft above the structure but a spokesperson said "we will not be infilling or demolishing the tunnel".

When asked if the work would make the tunnel inaccessible and prevent it from being converted into a greenway, the spokesperson said: "Yes, that's an accurate summary."

The government-owned company will now seek planning consent from Bradford Council to carry out the work.

The Queensbury Tunnel Campaign has been exploring the possibility of a judicial review that would examine the lawfulness of the decision.

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