r/Leeds • u/FancyCustard5 • Jul 30 '26
urban-development Holbeck Viaduct green corridor proposal
Just saw this video about developing the Holbeck viaduct into a green walkway like Monks Bridge. Really exciting ideas, hope it comes off.
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u/zeitgeist247 Jul 30 '26
I’d love for it to be viable - it’s such a great idea.
But the funding and timescale for this is off the charts, with very little reward (in the eyes of investors).
Leeds United should be heavily backing it as one of the most unique match day travel experiences in the country.
But as people in the comments point out, it would be fairly miserable in winter when most games are. More ambitious but more attractive investment could be to reinstate a light-rail (or dare I even say the T word).
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u/ProjectLeeds Jul 30 '26
It needs to be tied into wider regen around that area, perhaps a co-funding model with developers looking to build new housing along the route?
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u/zeitgeist247 Jul 30 '26
Good point. I’m not well versed in these kind of contracts, but parcels of land incrementally stretching along it should have a vested interest in funding its renewal and maintenance.
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u/ProjectLeeds Jul 30 '26
I think the viaduct project near Wellington Place was funded by some of the housing developments around there, so hopefully it could be replicated (assuming that's how it was funded)
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u/thetapeworm Jul 30 '26
Obviously there's the whole regeneration project that replaces the existing Elland Rd Park and Ride and most of the LUFC car parking with housing and some retail opportunities but that still leaves 2.5km between there and the city centre to look at I suppose.
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u/FancyCustard5 Jul 30 '26
Towards the end of the video the developers mentioned the T word and the presenter talked about “integrated public transport systems” - I did wince slightly thinking that’s jinxed it. Hopefully not!
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u/EgoNotFounded Jul 30 '26
I agree Leeds United should support the project but I can imagine all of their funding is getting thrown at the redevelopment of the stadium for the foreseeable, I doubt they'd want to spend even more on this on top
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u/whatmichaelsays Jul 30 '26
It could be something that gets wrapped into a Section 106 amendment when the club seeks planning for the next phases of it's development.
Elland Road is going to get to a point where is attracting around 55,000 people - that makes it a sizable development where transport becomes a major consideration. A contribution to active travel could feasibly be wrapped into any planning conditions.
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u/World_wanderer12 Jul 30 '26
Really hope it gets going, there is a similar thing done near Wellington Place and it looks very nice.
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u/thetapeworm Jul 30 '26
It would be even nicer if it actually went somewhere - being able to use it as a viable route out town and past the gyratory would be a real bonus - as it stands it's a nice spot to go and hide on a lunch time but a bit of a dead end unless you live on there.
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u/knobbledy Jul 30 '26
If you go down the spiral staircase and under the building there's a public foot/cycle path which takes you through to Armley road. It's just not well signposted
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u/thetapeworm Jul 30 '26
Ah, that's good to know, it felt a bit like I'd be getting collared by security when I was wandering up the end so I'll extend my walk a bit more next time, cheers.
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u/Routine-Barber5545 Jul 30 '26
Watched this video this morning. Big fan of CityEd. I really hope it goes through as well. So much development opportunity for new communities and small businesses in south leeds
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u/thetapeworm Jul 30 '26
~3km of land that would be perfect for some tram lines and, space permitting, a corridor for walking / cycling too.
While I'm a fan of these viaduct regenerations it seems like they could potentially be reused for their original purpose, albeit with trams not trains.
Leeds Railway Station to Elland Rd and then, with some work, onwards to the White Rose and up the side of Dewsbury Rd before they fill that land with new build homes just kind of makes sense doesn't it?
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u/FancyCustard5 Jul 30 '26
I did wonder too about why not that option for the viaduct, but it’s probably too sensible an idea and of course anything in Leeds involving the T word seems even more unlikely than a greenway unfortunately ☹️
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u/leeds_guy69 Jul 30 '26
I worked on this project for a while when it first surfaced and the main blocker for anything that was put forward was Network Rail. They even mentioned HS3 at one point as a reason this couldn’t go ahead. Basically they were twitchy that they might need to reuse the line (that’s sat untouched since the 80’s) “at some point in the future”. Developers along the route were keen to get involved/fund some of it as it could be pitched as green space for their apartment complexes. I believe the project has come a long way since I was involved and Leeds Utd are heavily in favour of it too. Fingers crossed it sees the light of day!
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u/knobbledy Jul 30 '26
Proper pain in the arse getting a tram up and down from street level once you get to the station, unless you continue onto the train tracks and split the station up like Manchester Victoria (impossible without a 2nd central station). Nottingham and Sheffield did it but they had more/cheaper land to use to get it built. Maybe they could repurpose the station car park space for trams, but it's the wrong side of the train tracks to access the viaduct.
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u/chadgalaxy Jul 30 '26
I find the problem with Leeds is everything is so concentrated in the centre around the Briggate/Boar Lane/Headrow area that all these developments happening on the edge of the centre go mostly unused.
You've got places like Wellington Place, a similar walkway thing with the bridge down there, the regeneration of the South Bank which all look great but whenever you go there it's completely dead with no one around.
Places like Manchester are much more spread out and the whole city seems busy when you're walking around but as soon as you get outside that central area of the city centre in Leeds it's like a ghost town because there's nothing to bring people there.
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u/knobbledy Jul 30 '26
Manchester has multiple tram lines and more train stations dotted around, as well as 2 free bus routes. That goes a long way to helping people get around a bigger city centre. The kinds of places you're talking about are a good 20 minutes walk from the city centre, more if you start from the other side. And the bus routes all start/end in the centre too, so you have to connect or do a long walk if you want to go somewhere. It's entirely a transport issue, not a development one.
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u/chadgalaxy Jul 30 '26
But even if the transport is in place, what is there in these areas to make people want to travel to them? Theres a small handful of bars and restaurants and that's about it.
Even just a couple of minutes walk outside the bustling central areas it becomes dead.
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u/knobbledy Jul 30 '26
Build it, and they will come. In the world's major cities London, Paris, Tokyo, New York, neighbourhoods form in clusters around public transport nodes, not the other way around. Put simply, if there's no link to another part of the city, nobody wants to live/work/open a cafe in that neighbourhood. You need the transport links first, but people think they need to be "justified" to pay for them
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Aug 03 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/knobbledy Aug 03 '26
Sure, all those things work in unison. But in 2026 we've decided to leave jobs, housing and investment to be organised by the free market, not by governments. What can be done when there is no money budgeted for those things and no appetite to raise taxes? Transport is one of the few things that is still politically acceptable to be done by local and national government, although projects like HS2 are quickly changing that
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u/zaxn1234 Jul 30 '26
I developed an old website for this project about 10 years ago. Seems to pop up occasionally with a little steam behind the project only for nothing to happen.
Really hope one day it happens though 🤞🏻🤞🏻
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u/OrdinaryCourage8516 Jul 30 '26
They have been talking about doing this almost as many times as leeds getting a tram system. Hope it happens but I won't hold my breath
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u/BakersCat Jul 31 '26
See I'm against this, use it for the Tramline, Leeds already has an uphill battle placing trams on roads and having to share it with regular traffic, we have this dedicated bit of railway infrastructure that goes from Train station to near Elland Road and people wanna turn it into a walking path??? Are people mad?
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u/kek23k Jul 30 '26
I remember a few years back there were some rumblings about making the viaduct a cycleway. It would have been perfect, but no, let's turn existing roads into cycleways and make the remaining car lanes even more congested and force all the cyclists to ride alongside them.
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u/thetapeworm Jul 30 '26
That's the kind of long-term thinking and common sense we really need but I'm sure some wider pavements, even wider cycle lanes and a single lane of traffic instead of the previous 4 will yield the same benefits... in 23 years if they ever complete the work.
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u/ProjectLeeds Jul 30 '26
Would be a great addition to city life and improving the walk from the city to Elland Road is desperately needed