Hilary Benn advocates for the Viaduct

Dated 1 May 2025, Hilary, a long time supporter of the project to create a 'highline' on the historic railway structure, said: "First things first. Many many congratulations to Leeds United on gaining promotion to the Premiership. It’s where the club belongs, it’s great news for our city and let us all hope this will be the start of a new era of success in the top flight. The Holbeck Viaduct Project is a great idea. It wants to take a redundant railway viaduct that runs from just close to Leeds City Station all the way to Gelderd Road, near Elland Road, and turn it into a green walkway. I recently attended a meeting at Elland Road to talk about the proposal and to look at the prospects for progressing it. The railway line viaduct was built in 1882 and the last train ran on it in 1983. It has 92 arches and is 7.5 m high and 7.2 m wide, but most important of all it gives great views over the city One of the advantages of the project is that it would help shorten the walk from the railway station to Elland Road on match days. With the plans to significantly extend the capacity at Elland Road, it would be really good if more supporters could make their way there by public transport, including by walking along the Holbeck Viaduct. Like all projects, there are many complexities to deal with. Will Network Rail agree finally to dispose of it? How would you sort out landholdings along the way? How will the project deal with the fact that the viaduct passes over one railway line and several roads? What are the legal and insurance challenges? And most important of all, how can the project raise sufficient funds to meet the cost of maintaining the viaduct in the years ahead? Everyone at the meeting realised that these questions will have to be answered, but the most important thing is that this is a brilliant idea that has been kept alive for nearly a decade thanks to the persistence and determination of those who came up with it. And I, for one, can’t wait to get up there and see what a wonderful thing it will be." Hilary's contribution to the meeting was excellent and we have already made great progress on the complexities such as funding, access and preparing for planning applications.