Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of capacity at Leeds railway station.

Leeds is one of the busiest stations in the North of England and a key regional hub, with c30m passengers using it each year. It is also one of the UK’s most congested rail centres and regularly suffers from overcrowding.

In February 2023, the Department approved £36.4m of funding for Network Rail to complete detailed design work on the Leeds Existing Station Programme (LESP), which aims to resolve critical station capacity issues and build resilience to accommodate future rail programmes. We expect to receive a Full Business Case for the scheme by the end of 2024.

The Department is also working with Network Rail to increase capacity at Leeds Station through a Leeds Area Improvement Programme. This is a rolling programme involving platform, track, and signalling infrastructure that will further increase capacity, resilience and performance for the benefit of the overall passenger service.