There has been a disturbing development in our campaign to repurpose the historic Queensbury Tunnel as an active travel corridor.
For the past six years, we have been working hard to secure this outstanding Victorian asset as part of a greenway connecting Bradford and Halifax, establishing the structure as a landmark addition to the country’s cycle network.
However Highways England, who manage the tunnel on the Department for Transport’s behalf, has recently invoked emergency planning powers to infill one of the tunnel’s five ventilation shafts. This has had the effect of blocking the passageway.
Highways England's desperate act is nothing short of ruthless vandalism. The infilling is totally unjustified on engineering grounds and Bradford Council believes it represents an unlawful attempt to circumvent statutory planning rules. A planning application for the tunnel’s abandonment - which was presented to the Council in May - has not yet been determined.
We are seeking help from those who support our campaign to send the strongest possible message to Highways England. The best way to do that is to add to the 4,200 objections already lodged to their planning application for abandonment. Doing so is easy and needn’t take more than a couple of minutes.
Our website offers some thoughts as to how your objection might be framed…
http://www.queensburytunnel.org.uk/abandonment/
If you’re already clear about what to say, you can comment on and OBJECT to the proposed abandonment scheme via this link to Bradford Council’s website…
Please make sure you record your ‘STANCE’ as ‘OBJECT’.
We greatly appreciate your support.