Leopold II road tunnel to be renamed after a woman

Brussels' Leopold II road tunnel will be renamed after a woman, with the public invited to vote for who it should be.

The tunnel will bear a woman's name when it fully reopens in late 2021 following renovation works.

"This is a well-known route named after a controversial man," said Brussels mobility minister Elke Van den Brandt.

"The fact that it is a tunnel makes things easier from an administrative point of view: nobody lives there."

The Brussels parliament's equal opportunities committee will be overseeing the name change.

Working with women's rights activists and decolonisation experts, the committee will draw up a shortlist of potential names.

The options will be put to a public vote. Once completed, the committee will look at other opportunities to name Brussels streets after women.

The news comes after figures out last week revealed that only 6% of the streets in Brussels that carry a person's name are women.

Some 2,006 Brussels streets are named after men, 138 after women and one after a transgender person.