The Elmet Greenway
Linking Crossgates to the villages of North East Leeds along sections of the former Leeds to Wetherby railway providing a safe walking, cycling and equestrian route for all.
The route
The map below shows the route of the former Leeds to Wetherby railway line in green. The Elmet Greenway will closely follow the former railway where the alignment still exists, unfortunately sections have been lost through development over the years.
Background
Elmet Greenway was formally known as the Pendas Way (Route 17 of the Leeds Core Cycle Network).
The New Leeds Cycling Starts Here Strategy was formally approved by Leeds City Council’s Executive Board in June 2017. This followed the public consultation in 2016. It was developed by a range of partners from across the city to promote and develop cycling as a sustainable mode of travel, a sport, and to support the improvement of health and wellbeing across the city.
As part of the strategy, the aspiration for extending the cycle network outwards from the city to provide better connectivity for cycling and walking for community and recreational purposes was raised to the forefront.
One of the route opportunities set out in the strategy is the Elmet Greenway, which could in parts follow the route of the former Leeds to Wetherby rail line where the former track bed is still accessible. This offers the potential to provide a quiet and safe countryside cycling, walking and equestrian route connecting the villages of Thorner and Scholes with the Crossgates area of Leeds. Previous feasibility work was commissioned and undertaken on this route in 2007 and updated in 2009, which identified route options and outline costs.
Since this feasibility study was carried out, permission has been obtained for the East Leeds Orbital Road (ELOR), which included new routing and crossing facilities for the proposed greenway at the point they would intersect. The greenway has been identified in the adopted in the Barwick-in-Elmet and Scholes Neighbourhood Plan and a group of volunteers from the local communities formed the Elmet Greenway group a number of years ago and more recently established as a charity to promote and secure delivery of the greenway scheme.
click to enlarge
