{"id":251624,"date":"2025-07-09T20:10:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T20:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/251624\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T20:10:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T20:10:12","slug":"incredible-plans-announced-to-build-a-manchester-city-centre-underground-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/251624\/","title":{"rendered":"Incredible plans announced to build a Manchester city centre underground network"},"content":{"rendered":"

“I’m deadly serious – we are going underground”\"TheAndy Burnham(Image: PA)<\/p>\n

Plans to tunnel underneath Manchester city centre to run underground trains and trams are to be be drawn up, Andy Burnham<\/a> has announced.<\/p>\n

The mayor made the announcement at an event to launch the new, 10-year Greater Manchester Strategy, at which Mr Burnham said it was the policy he was most excited about.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going underground,\u201d the mayor said in his speech. \u201cWe are building the Bee Network on the surface. If we achieve our economic ambitions, we will be struggling to manage [with just that].<\/p>\n

\u201cI am going to ask TfGM to look at options for underground services. We will work with the government to look at financing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going underground was first named as a priority by Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) last year, in its draft rapid transit strategy.<\/p>\n

However, it did not provide details on where tunnels would go, nor a timescale for the project other than the middle of this century.<\/p>\n

Speaking after his speech, Andy Burnham told the Local Democracy Reporting Service the underground network would start with a new, underground Piccadilly station, already eyed in plans for a new Liverpool-Manchester railway line.<\/p>\n

Join the Manchester Evening News <\/strong>WhatsApp<\/strong> group <\/strong>HERE<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe will need infrastructure on a bigger scale to cope,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not a throwaway line. I am deadly serious.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want TfGM to start preparing the original, first concept for what an underground for Manchester might look like. I\u2019m going to open the earliest conversation with the government on what the funding mechanism will look like.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time Manchester has flirted with an underground network, famously planning a \u2018Picc-Vic\u2019 subterranean tunnel in the 1970s, before it was cancelled.<\/p>\n

A poster promoting the Picc Vic project (Image: Manchester University)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a completely new topic,\u201d the mayor added. \u201cWith Piccadilly, if it plays the way we hope with the digital campus, Sister, Mayfield, all of it will require a very significant international scale transport system.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think from the Piccadilly underground, we build off that a system that goes east-west and north-south.\u201d<\/p>\n

No timelines has been given on when material progress will be made on the tunnels, but Mr Burnham said he would like \u2018detailed\u2019 plans that are \u2018worked out what it will cost\u2019 by 2030.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“I’m deadly serious – we are going underground”Andy Burnham(Image: PA) Plans to tunnel underneath Manchester city centre to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[8916,15333,748,393,4884,2465,20083,8825,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-251624","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-andy-burnham","9":"tag-bee-network","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-manchester","14":"tag-piccadilly-train-station","15":"tag-transport-for-greater-manchester","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114825096851001930","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}