Northern Powerhouse 10 years on: What we were promised and what we got

10 comments

1. At least some of the money from the cancelled Northern Leg of HS2 went to mend the potholes of the roads of the city of London.

2. I still think Richy cancelling HS2, *in the city it was supposed to go to, in a converted former train station conference center* is one of the greatest masterpieces of political incompetence there has ever been.

3. It was just another empty and meaningless Tory slogan which meant nothing but the press enjoyed, just like levelling up, Midlands engine, magic money tree, stop the boats, strong and stable, oven ready deal, feel free to add more. Did anyone really think they were really going to deliver?

4. They’ve “promised” that HS2 cash will be spent on improving public transport in my town of Darlington by giving us “trackless trams”. They’re like buses (which are late because they get stuck in traffic jams), only instead of having dedicated tracks they drive on the roads… and so will get stuck in the same traffic jams. Oh, and trackless trams are so heavy that every single road & bridge they use will need to be dug up and reinforced.

   Meanwhile, they’re already building new platforms for our railway station to accommodate high speed rail in the future when HS3 / HS4 / whatever finally reaches this far north. *Cough*.

5. Its Disgusting how much the north gets left behind.
   Why havent I seen any rolling heads?

6. The irony is even greater considering he is MP for Richmond in North Yorkshire. The betrayal!

7. It’s hard to put into context just how poor transport is in the North of England so here’s an attempt:

   – Birmingham and Manchester are the two largest cities in Europe without a metro (subway system).
   – Birmingham has ~3 million people in its urban area, and has a single tram line to serve them.
   – Leeds is the largest city in Europe without a light rail (tram) system.
   – Sheffield is the largest city in Europe without any electrified railways serving it.
   – It’s hard to be sure, but Manchester and Sheffield are probably the largest cities in Europe without a direct motorway like road between them.

   (From Tom Forth on Twitter)

   And it’s not like they have great buses to make up for it. The UK is the only developed nation in the world to deregulate its buses (except London which was too important for deregulation), meaning our bus routes are controlled by private companies, including the route and service frequency. Luckily this has recently been overturned in Manchester and Leeds and hopefully elsewhere soon.

8. 90% of all financing for the ‘North’ stayed in London as per usual. It’s time Westminster was levelled and a nice big wall built around the rest of London.

9. HS2 saga summed up – “A man who knows the cost of everything, but the value of nothing”.

   We are refusing to invest in our futures.

   Its like we’ve got £500k in the bank, but refuse to use it for anything other than essentials (even then cheap fixes). Pointing our finger at everyone like they are trying to steal our money. Eventually all those problems you refused to pay for are going to mean loss or stagnant income, out of control maintenance problems on the house you live in. That 500k runs out and you’re broke, and have a house falling down around you.

   I just heard Stewart/Campbell talking about Labours huge issue that they are so desperate not to let the Tories attack lines of “Labour are gonna SPEND SPEND and raise taxes” that we are just heading for more Austerity, more economic stagnation and more broken Public Sector.

10. The canning of HS2 Phase 2a/2b and drastic curtailment of NPR is nothing short of a disaster for the North. Had those projects gone ahead as planned, it would have led to much better links in the the north between the major cities, but now that HS2 is not going past Handsacre and NPR is not likely to be going past Marsden, it just means that the north is gonna be stuck cramming trains onto 2 track lines not fit for the traffic going between Leeds and Manchester – Liverpool, as well as people living near Manchester and Liverpool having to deal with further delays or infrequent trains at the suburban stations on the WCML due to the fast trains blasting down these lines. Adding onto this, another bit that really needs fixing is the Sheffield – Manchester Transpennine links as the Hope Valley Line and A628 are just beyond poor for arteries connecting two larger cities, which is worse knowing that they were planning to fix this issue back in the 1970s/1980s via the M67, which just means that governments seemingly do not seem to overly care about this issue, even though this seems to have been a issue for all those years.

    All in all, Curtailin HS2 and NPR is just damaging for the north and what ever Sunak thought would be compensation (which is merely just mostly road projects at the end of the day, another spit in the face) is not going to have nearly as much benefit as NPR and HS2 would have had for the north, which would have resolved a fair few bottlenecks on the railways in the north, meaning the north will probably be doomed to absurd delays for even longer on the railways.