YP Letters: Existing rail line near airport's edge offers simple solution

In response to your news item and editorial on access to Leeds Bradford Airport (The Yorkshire Post, February 27), we would say vehemently that it should not be relocated but it should definitely have a rail link – and there is a simple solution.

The suggested direct rail link from Leeds via Horsforth to the airport terminal is technically impracticable and financially unjustifiable, but there is a simple, much lower cost solution that the consultants seem to ignore – namely building a new station on the existing Leeds to Harrogate line that runs very near to the airport’s eastern boundary.

It is rather ironic that your Editorial refers to the Robin Hood Airport being conveniently close to the East Coast Main Line, when in fact the Leeds to Harrogate line is only 500m from the airport perimeter by the long stay car park – and the new IEP London-Harrogate trains will be passing the airport every two hours from 2019. In our assessment, building a new LBA station on the existing Harrogate line will be the most cost-effective and economically viable option using the well-established railway corridor already serving Leeds, Harrogate and York to best holistic regional advantage. The corridor already has significant committed enhancements during the next three years and beyond.

Harrogate Chamber has repeatedly proposed that the airport should have a parkway station served initially by the existing car park shuttle buses. In comparison, the proposed new railway line as a branch off the Harrogate Line from Horsforth up to the airport terminal and onward to Guiseley and Bradford would have a very high capital and operating cost and it would be technically challenging to both construct and operate due to the elevations.

From: John Bolton, Gregory Springs Mount, Mirfield,

I AGREE with Margaret Foster and what she says in her letter (The Yorkshire Post, March 2) regarding Robin Hood Airport, Doncaster.

I would go further than the new road connection and suggest it be, as soon as the authorities are able, connected by rail which already runs within a few hundred yards of the runway.

It would then become the main airport beyond Yorkshire and a vital component of any Northern Powerhouse scheme. At the same time it would offer a useful alternative to Manchester which now appears to be bursting at the seams.