“Build it from the north” was the cry from transport experts for years as tens of billions of pounds were channelled into projects in the south east, London, and even HS2’s viaducts, verges, and bat tunnels in the home counties.
The wide-ranging Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) plan is not just about rail expansion to realise the potential of the “untapped goldmine of the North of England” — although that is a big part of it.
In the 2030s, it will see a new high speed line between Liverpool and Manchester, and later a line between Birmingham and Manchester to replace the cancelled leg of the HS2 project.
As it seeks to right a long history of cross-party overpromising and under-delivery, the infrastructure plans unveiled on Tuesday are central to the political challenge facing Labour and its hopes of reviving economic growth.
As well as championing HS2, former Chancellor George Osborne in 2015 pronounced in an old train shed near Old Trafford that the newly-elected majority Conservative government would roll out a high speed rail line across Labour’s northern heartlands.
Boris Johnson, elected on a pledge to “level up” northern England, latched onto the idea after winning a majority in 2019.
But the political consensus behind the rail project was broken in 2023 by Rishi Sunak, who scrapped the northern leg of HS2 and left NPR alive in accounting terms only.
Rail insiders said it had not even reached the “crayons on a map” stage.
After winning a massive majority rooted in northern England, a nervous Labour government kicked a decision on NPR into the long grass.
On Tuesday, however, its big decision finally came.
Sources in Manchester suspect it was an upcoming deadline on the use of powers over HS2 land along this route that forced the government’s hand in recommitting to a plan of some sort.
What we are left with includes Manchester Airport becoming the most connected airport outside London with high speed. Better connections from Liverpool to Manchester and on to Leeds and Hull could also help create even more economic growth than the vital Oxford to Cambridge link currently being constructed.
The timing is crucial. Manchester’s council leader has warned the government the cancellation of HS2 was starting to see long-term investment in office space and regeneration shifted to Birmingham instead.
Buildings that take a decade to open need at least the outline of a plan for connectivity, even if passengers won’t see trains for a decade and a half.
HS2’s entire premise was “for the north”, but its budget was blown on overspecified beautified lines in the south, so much so that it will never actually reach the north. It is effectively an extension of the London Tube to Birmingham.
What has changed since 2015 is that Greater Manchester is now the fastest growing city in the UK. It boasts two Premier League big beasts, a teeming music scene, and has even snaffled the Brit awards. Manchester also has designs on a World Cup Final in 2035 and is rumoured to be mulling an Olympic bid.
The difference in the government’s plans this time, it argues, is that the planning has come first. There is a strategy in the sequencing of lines. The costs of the line will be cheaper as they will not be built to HS2 specifications. They have actively decided to go for a pricier line via the airport because of the growth impact. There is almost political consensus here.
But there are pitfalls and mined areas ahead, quite literally.
Some of the NPR route is over old unmapped mining areas, especially the Cheshire salt mines. No one is quite sure what lies beneath the green vistas which will be replaced by high speed rail.
It is also quite the political junction. It delivers a win to Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who held out until this week on agreeing the deal, potentially providing Sir Keir Starmer some breathing room.
Tuesday’s move assuages what had been growing frustration at the lack of a big picture vision from the Labour government.
And Burnham’s people say that, as he weighs a leadership challenge after May’s local elections, he is genuinely enjoying running booming Manchester.
Reeves told me that, while the government would like to better connect the north and the south, it has chosen here to prioritise connections between northern towns and cities.
Interesting, here, is the Reform factor.
To some surprise, the insurgent party’s leadership backed scrapping the London to Liverpool plan, though it would have supported an underground station in Greater Manchester.
Deputy leader Richard Tice told contractors “not to bother” bidding for contracts, which a prospective Farage-Tice government would scrap.
Labour’s northern leaders implored the government to seize what they saw as an opportunity to push Reform back and appeal to northern England’s pride in its infrastructure and concern about the money always found for projects “down south”. It may be another reason for this green light.
The chancellor says it is the most important decision she has made and it needed time to get right. It’s going to take time to see a line, a train, or even a passenger. But for the long suffering rail commuters of the historic pioneering routes of northern England, there may be new tunnels, and there may be light in them too.
It’s a green signal, if not quite full speed ahead.
