A new fast rail link between Liverpool and Leeds would allow 1.3 million people in the north of England to reach four cities in less than an hour, adding billions of pounds to the local economy, according to the body tasked with improving transport infrastructure in the region.
Transport for the North (TfN) has proposed a new train line that would connect Bradford to Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and beyond – a transformational development for a city severely hampered by lacking a through-railway station.
Bradford has the most youthful population of any UK city, with almost a quarter of the district’s 528,000 people under 16, but its two train stations are dead ends, limiting job prospects and deterring investment.
The new line, to be called Northern Powerhouse Rail, jettisoning previous suggestions it should be called HS3 or Crossrail for the North, does not stretch as far as Newcastle or Hull. Services to those cities would be on old, albeit upgraded, lines, if TfN’s proposals become a reality at some point beyond 2030. The line should connect with HS2 from Sheffield in the east and Crewe in the west.
Only 10,000 people in the north of England are within one hour’s reach of the four cities, which are among the region’s largest. There was an 8% increase in the number of road trips in the region between 2012 and 2016, with 75% of its workers commuting by car and just 7% using buses and 4% trains, according to TfN. That compares with 45% of Londoners who travelled to work using public transport in 2015.
Analysis from TfN shows that a service on the new line from Liverpool to Manchester Piccadilly, via Warrington and Manchester airport, could take about 28 minutes, compared with the current fastest service of 50 minutes.
The north has a very substantial rail network with about 500 stations, but has a market share of just 3.7% following years of under-investment, TfN said.
Plans for a 20-mile trans-Pennine road tunnel between Manchester and Sheffield have been shelved after engineers decided it would be too expensive to dig so far under the Peak District national park.
TfN believes the most promising alternative option is a partially tunnelled route along the existing A628 Woodhead Pass, with a supporting package of wider road connections, including on the M60, M67 and M1.
From April, TfN will be England’s first sub-national statutory transport body. It has the mandate to make recommendations on behalf of the north to the Department for Transport, Network Rail, Highways England and HS2 Ltd.
When will HS2 be built?
Work on phase one, London to Birmingham, should start in summer 2017, although major work on clearing the route, bridges and tunnels will start mid-2018. The bill giving Phase One planning permission and powers became law in 2017, but a similar bill for the remaining northern route, with twin branches to Manchester and Leeds, is still to be drawn up. First trains are expected to run in 2026, with some services continuing from HS2 to existing railway tracks, allowing fast direct trains between London and stations across the north. The full network is expected to be completed in 2033.
TfN argues that investing between £60bn and £70bn in the north of England’s antiquated road and rail network between 2020 and 2050 could add almost £100bn in real terms of economic benefit to the UK by 2050, along with 850,000 new jobs.
It has identified several “strategic corridors” for investment: one connecting the “energy coasts” of west Cumbria, home to Sellafield, and Hull and the north-east; the central Pennines, which is currently served by overcrowded rail and road links; the southern Pennines, which includes the engineering challenge of the Peak District; the roads between the west and Wales; the train line between the east coast and Scotland; and the rail link between the north-west and Sheffield.
