Manchester (Parliament Politics Magazine) – Mayor Andy Burnham has insisted the government reuse land reserved for HS2 to construct a new train line between Manchester and Birmingham through Cheshire.
The suggested new line would build new ways from the end of HS2 at Lichfield to High Legh in Cheshire, which would carry on to merge the proposed east-west Northern Powerhouse Rail. He stated plans for the new 80km line are aimed at putting an end to “treating people in the North like second-class citizens” when it comes to transport.
How would Burnham’s plan impact travel times?
Mr Burnham conveyed the plans in a report with West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker and ex-HS2 Ltd chairman Sir David Higgins, calling for a stop to delays on the West Coast Mainline and M6 motorway which have reached capacity and evolved “major barriers” to growth. The recommendations for a Midlands-North West rail connection can be built for more affordable than the scrapped HS2 leg and shave 30 minutes off existing journey times to London, the report discovered.
What are the expected benefits of the new rail line?
Mr Burnham stated it would bring “huge benefits” to passengers and could be funded through a collaboration between national and local government with private companies. The report found that a new line is the ‘only suitable option’ for attracting private finance. It also calculated that it could preserve the taxpayer £2 billion on expenses from the HS2 Phase 2 cancellation by reusing much of the land, powers, and strategy work that has already been secured through public investment.
Mr Burnham called on the administration to keep control of the ex-HS2 land from Handsacre to Crewe to deliver the new scheme. He stated: “Land must be retained in public ownership, there must be no fire sale, the country would repent for the rest of this century were it to give up the land it has bought, it is critical.”
The Greater Manchester Mayor said that it is “not good enough” for residents travelling between Manchester and Birmingham to anticipate delays as the norm due to the persistent use of Victorian railways. “We’re not having a problem where there’s a North-South divide with infrastructure, where we have to live with 19th or 20th-century infrastructure in the 21st century, and the southern half of the country gets 21st-century infrastructure,” he stated. It’s not right and it ought to be directly challenged as I will persist to do if we don’t get a plan together.”