Not sure it was a scattergun, mind - the Tories had Leeds in their sights for both parliamentary and local election seats in those days. So they reckoned that by providing all this central government largesse, bypassing the local authority, the grateful population would express their thanks through the ballot box.



Which of course they did. Except they voted instead for the party that they THOUGHT had brought all the good things to Leeds! The Leeds council played a blinder, and continues to do so. Our muppetry of fekkwitted donkeys, by comparison...

It also doesn't help when our esteemed council leader also happens to have a nice little sideline on the board of the reprehensible "Leeds City Region" project.

I see the latest wheeze dreamed up by these people is a £1billion transport fund taking money out of the budgets of all the West Yorkshire councils - no doubt so we can all pay for our beloved neighbours tram network, which they desperately need because Manchester has one.

Leeds is Europe's largest city without a tram type network. I don't fully know how transport is funded locally but do know that the government decided all authorities had to bid for funding to the catchy titled local sustainable (no, really) transport fund. We contributed to it in Leeds. A lot of groups pooled their bids together. It was unsuccessful. So transport funding & planning in one of the largest metropolis in Europe is down to a lottery, with the uncertainty & huge cost in money & effort that entails.

Bradford must be the largest city in the UK without mainline railway station; around 300K population and on a branch line, you really couldn't make it up.

I bet Leeds will get its trams before we are reinstated onto the main line. I can't imagine where their aping of Manchester will end though; Manc has trams so Leeds wants trams, Manc has an arena, so Leeds wants an arena, anything else they feel 'deprived' of, I wonder?

I don't care if Leeds gets a tram network, I just object with money being taken from Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield to pay for it - rlas is the fairly transparent planrl (light rail being the first thing mentioned in that article, and on the internal LCC intranet article I saw). Maybe I'm being paranoid, but plenty of evidence suggests I'm not.

Bradford might have already reached the point of no return but, if it hasn't, I wish the powers that be would open their eyes and realise that their dream of one power in a "city region" magically benefiting the rest of the "region" isn't having much of an effect.

This is the old 'trickle down effect' which has been pretty well debunked by history. Money given to the 'Leeds city region' will stay in Leeds; check out the latest 'development area' scam.

There was talk of Leeds extending the tramway into Bradford IIRC, which is all we need, something which makes it even easier to go and spend our cash in Leeds. The council are just dolts at times, they get duped by everything.

It wouldn't surprise me, we'll become to Leeds what Oldham is to Manchester. They've lost their branch line rail stations to be replaced by a Metrolink extension which will not only lengthens the journey into Manchester as it is, but also isolates them from the main rail network and anywhere else.

Premiership Football

I'm struggling to see anywhere in the article that even mentions Leeds. Transport has to be thought of strategically. Unless you are a government & think breaking up the rail network will benefit the country, obviously. Although if you were responsible for handing out money which had to show a positive outcome you would not be giving it to Bradford.

I take it that was meant to be one of your silly flippant remarks? If not, it is a ridiculous statement.

Really? Why?

Clearly because Carlisle is the largest city in the UK, and that city has no trams.

Look it up. 3.9560546875:5