'Excellent news for passengers and businesses in the Leeds City Region' is how Metro Chairman Councillor Chris Greaves has described today's announcement of a new fleet of high-speed trains for the East Coast Main Line.

"These trains will provide passengers on this core route between Leeds City Region and London with quicker, more comfortable and more reliable journeys," said Councillor Greaves.

"And the news that Leeds will be one of five maintenance locations for the new trains can only be good news in terms of local jobs," he added.

"Some of the current trains are 30 years old so the sooner they are replaced, the better," he continued.

"New trains will mean a significant improvement to the service, contribute to the development of the local economy and act as a springboard for further improvements to the local rail network.

"Metro would also like to see further electrification of lines to take maximum advantage of the new trains as well as more frequent services and more services to parts of the city region which currently are not so well connected.

The new fleet will be built and maintained by British-led consortium, Agility Trains, which is made up of John Laing, Hitachi and Barclays.

The first of the new trains, which will cut journey times between Leeds and London by around 10 minutes, are scheduled to enter service on the East Coast main line by 2013, with the full fleet coming into service by 2015.