A newly-proposed railway line linking Manchester and Liverpool could cut the commute time between the two cities to just 20 minutes, local leaders have said.
Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram, mayors of Greater Manchester and the Liverpool City Region respectively, said the railway could provide a £90bn economic boost to the north-west by 2040.
The new railway, which could begin construction in the early 2030s, is forecast to support 22,000 jobs while being built.
Both Liverpool and Manchester were originally going to be included in Phase 2 of the HS2 project, but this was cancelled in 2023 by the Conservative government as part of a series of cost-saving measures. That government committed £17bn to the Liverpool-Manchester line following this cancellation, and the project’s inclusion in the High Speed Rail Bill was subsequently confirmed in the 2024 King’s Speech.
Rotheram and Burnham have called on the current government to commit to the project as soon as possible in order to give certainty to investors and help retain the skilled workforce built up through the delivery of HS2.
The mayors also said the proposed line would “punch well above its weight” in comparison to similarly sized projects such the Elizabeth Line or East West Rail by freeing up local rail capacity, slashing journey times and bringing more than half a million extra people within 30 minutes of Liverpool and Manchester city centres.
The new line would run from Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Piccadilly, with stops at a new Liverpool Gateway station, Warrington Bank Quay and Manchester Airport.
It is envisaged as a key component of the broader Northern Arc project, which is designed to be a key economic corridor linking the two cities with other areas in the north-west.
“Two centuries ago, the Liverpool-Manchester Railway changed the world – kickstarting the railway age and powering a revolution in trade, travel and opportunity,” Rotheram said.
“Today, we have the chance to do it again. Our new line forms part of a wider vision to unlock £90bn of economic growth and 500,000 new homes – the kind of transformation our region, and our country, desperately needs.
“We’re putting forward a serious, deliverable plan that does things differently – developing plans at a regional level instead of a top-down approach. Not cap in hand, but shoulder to shoulder with government. We’re offering a new way of doing things: faster, fairer and better value. With the right backing, we can get spades in the ground in the early 2030s and deliver the world-class railway we deserve.”
Burnham added: “For too long, such major infrastructure projects in the UK have been delivered in a top-down way. We want to work hand-in-hand with the government to plan and deliver this railway from the ground up, enabling us to maintain our growth momentum for Greater Manchester.”