Whether we will ever agree on what went wrong with England’s ill-fated high speed rail false start, Downing Street wants to press on with updating regional connectivity.
According to ITV News, freshly tabled plans would essentially revive HS2’s northern phase ‘in all but name’, and offer a faster route with more capacity between the UK’s two largest regional cities – Manchester and Birmingham.
However, work on the scheme, which is an extension of pre-existing multi-billion-pound infrastructure upgrades dubbed Northern Powerhouse Rail, will only start once other transport promises have been met. These include improvements to and additional lines between Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield, plus a new station in Bradford, as was announced under the previous Conservative government following their decision to axe the northern phase of High Speed Rail 2 (HS2).
Blueprints extend beyond the biggest conurbations, too. Services running between Newcastle via Darlington and Durham will reach as far as Chester. And the 21-mile Leamside Line, closed to passengers since 1964, will reopen from Pelaw to Gateshead and Tursdale in County Durham.
A funding cap of £45 million has been set, although this can be topped up with local contributions. £1.1 billion will be allocated to initial development and design, with no timescale set at the time of writing but work expected to last well into the 2030s. Ministers have made it clear the Manchester-Birmingham route, announced on Wednesday, was not a case of reinstating part of HS2.
‘Of course, I’d like us to go faster, but I don’t want us to be wasting taxpayers money,’ Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told Sky News. ‘We need to learn the lessons from big infrastructure projects like HS2, where insufficient planning happened up front.’
‘Over and over again, people in northern communities, from Liverpool and Manchester to York and Newcastle have been let down by broken promises,’ added Prime Minister Keir Starmer. ‘This cycle has to end. No more paying lip service to the potential of the North, but backing it to the hilt.’
However, any plans to spend big on public transport connections could still be scuppered, hamstrung or delayed if Reform win then next general election. Nigel Farage’s party, currently top in many polls, has pledged to scrap the Northern Powerhouse scheme completely as part of its controversial – and largely vague – manifesto promise to reduce spending. An aim which has still to materialise at county and town halls run by the right wing bloc, where constituents have raised concerns about continued overspend and a failure to balance the books – a key campaign point at this year’s local elections.
Image: Sam / Unsplash
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