The Department for Transport (DfT) has stated the delivery of proposals to connect Birmingham and Manchester with a railway line won’t be developed until both HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) are finished.
A Parliamentary written question from shadow secretary of state for transport Richard Holden asked when the DfT expects to “complete the work required to develop plans for a North-South new line between Birmingham and Manchester”.
Responding to this, transport undersecretary Simon Lightwood said: “The Northern Growth Strategy set out the government’s intention to ultimately deliver a full North-South new line between Birmingham and Manchester.
“We expect the delivery timelines for this line to follow the completion of HS2 and NPR.”
A new Birmingham–Manchester rail line was signalled as an ambition that could support northern rail links as part of this plan, though the government said at the time this would not amount to a reinstatement of the cancelled HS2 Phase 2 project, which was due to link Birmingham, Manchester, Crewe, Leeds and the East Midlands.
HS2 Phase 2 was cancelled in October 2023, when former prime minister Rishi Sunak announced the construction of the line would not continue beyond Birmingham.
The decision followed earlier scaling back of the project in November 2021, when the Integrated Rail Plan (IRP) scrapped the HS2 Phase 2b eastern leg and reduced the scope of NPR.
NPR is billed by ministers as a transformational upgrade to east–west connectivity across the North, linking Liverpool, Manchester, Warrington, Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield and York, and improving onward services to Newcastle and Hull.
The government says the project will be delivered in phases, starting with improved links between Sheffield and Leeds, Leeds and York and Leeds and Bradford, and taking forward development of the Leamside Line in the North East.
Later phases would include a new Liverpool to Manchester route, via Manchester Airport, and Warrington and upgraded routes across the Pennines.
Lightwood’s comments have now made it clear that all of this work, including HS2 Phase 1 (which is currently undergoing a reset and does not have a specified timeline of completion), will have to be delivered before plans for the North-South Line are developed.
The link is considered imperative to overcoming capacity issues, which railway lines north of Birmingham suffer from.
In 2024, the National Infrastructure Commission (now part of the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority) warned that not upgrading rail infrastructure north of Birmingham, in the area that the cancelled HS2 Phase 2 was due to serve, is not a sustainable option.
Its report 4 painted a stark picture of what the government’s decision to cancel HS2 Phase 2 could do to transport infrastructure in the north.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) also recently stated the cancellation of the northern leg raises urgent, unanswered questions and has rendered Phase 1 of HS2 “very poor value for money” for taxpayers.
While the National Audit Office (NAO) stated the cancellation of HS2 north of Birmingham has seen billions of pounds and most benefits squandered.
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