'We were told it could be the early hours of the morning before road re-opens'
An eyewitness has revealed police officers manning a cordon at the scene have blamed today's issues on "a snapped cable".
Accountant James Morris has been forced to travel back to Manchester by rail this evening and abandon his car within the police cordon after parking it next to the building site.
He told the Mirror: "We were initially told it would be 90 minutes to two hours, then as more people were gathered waiting to get back to their cars, a sergeant came over and told us that a cable had snapped one one of the cranes and it had been declared a major incident.
"He told us engineers were en-route, but they weren't local and when they arrived they would have to assess the crane to see if it had to be dismantled or could be repaired – he said it could be the early hours before the road is open again."
When asked about theories Storm Debi high winds had played a part in today's incident, Mr Morris was doubftul, explaining: "To be honest it's not been that bad here. It's rained a bit but I don't think the weather's had anything to do with this.
"It's more about something going wrong with the actual crane."
Large parts of Leeds City Centre are cordoned off tonight, because of worries about an unstable crane
— Pulse 1 News (@pulse1news) November 14, 2023
An industrial site on Whitehall Road near to the train station has been evacuated and it's causing disruption on the rails pic.twitter.com/ZhiGxGPtts