UK: A rail-based ‘Northern Arc’ infrastructure and development programme could help Britain ‘move on from the embarrassment of High Speed 2’ and restore the country’s reputation as a world leader in railway construction, believes Greater Manchester elected mayor Andy Burnham.
Burnham told the High Speed Rail Group annual conference in Birmingham on May 7 that a devolved approach holds the key to delivering major rail projects over the next 25 years. The proposals for a Northern Arc were first raised by Burnham and his Liverpudlian counterpart, Steve Rotheram, at a meeting with Treasury officials on May 1.
The arc is intended to cover a raft of rail interventions centred on the Liverpool – Manchester and Birmingham – Manchester corridors, but with benefits spreading to rail services in Yorkshire, the northeast and north Wales.
The two mayors and business leaders are to return to Westminster on May 14 to push for backing from ministers ahead of the government’s Spending Review, due to be finalised in June.
Devolution is key
Reflecting on the 10 years since Greater Manchester first got its formal devolution deal agreed with the government, Burnham said the area had been the fastest growing city region in Britain. However, the previous government’s decision in October 2023 to cancel the remaining phases of High Speed 2 had threatened to derail that growth story. ‘We still don’t know why that government did what it did’, he said.
Nevertheless, Burnham said the experience of HS2 and its plans for Manchester had shown that a ‘top down approach’ to planning major infrastructure could not work. Going forward, he called for a ‘bottom up’ approach led by local leaders, and mayoral authorities where these exist.
The mayor has lent his backing to two rail proposals intended to enhance connectivity on north-south and east-west axes through Manchester.
The first is the proposed Liverpool – Manchester Railway, which would be a new line augmenting the two existing routes between the cities. This would serve Warrington and Manchester Airport, making partial use of corridors previously identified for Phase 2b of HS2. Burnham noted that Warrington will soon have an elected mayoralty like the two cities either side of the town, while the recent closure of the soap factory overlooking Bank Quay station has offered up a major urban regeneration opportunity.
Burnham and former West Midlands Mayor Andy Street have also worked to develop an alternative to HS2 in the Birmingham – Manchester corridor. Burnham said he was continuing to lobby for this link to be built ‘incrementally’.
‘We must start thinking about rail as a growth enabler, not about railways in isolation’, Burnham told delegates in Birmingham. He reiterated his backing for Manchester to be granted an underground station at or near Piccadilly station, with HS2 Ltd having previously insisted that only a surface set of platforms were affordable.
Victorian infrastructure
With HS2 Phase I and the Transpennine Route Upgrade civil works now in full swing, Burnham warned that urgent decisions would be needed to address the chronic rail capacity problems in central Manchester. ‘The fastest growing city in the UK cannot be marooned on an island of Victorian infrastructure’, he insisted.
Looking ahead to the Spending Review, Burnham commented that ‘I would say to my own government [that] the north of England has actually done a lot for itself here. However, we really do need their backing to get heavy rail infrastructure sorted out. It’s still not where it should be; we’ve got the prospect now of trains coming via the Transpennine Route Upgrade and hitting the Victorian system of Manchester city centre, and HS2 trains coming up the country and then onto the West Coast Main Line. That is not good enough; we need a plan for modern 21st century rail infrastructure in the northwest of England.’
Few in the rail industry expect the Spending Review to offer many, if any, further commitments to invest in rail infrastructure beyond schemes already committed, such as TRU and the East West Rail project connecting Oxford and Cambridge. But Burnham felt that alternative funding options could still be explored. ‘We need to think now about land value capture, or how a Mayoral Development Corporation model could be used to take projects forward’, he told HSRG attendees. ‘The can has been kicked far enough down the road with the HS2 saga. We need to get on and deliver.’
Global leader
Addressing the risk of ‘boom and bust’ deterring the UK rail construction supply chain, Burnham insisted that the time was right for ‘a coherent strategy’ on transport planning to emerge in the government’s forthcoming Infrastructure Bill. ‘Our investment model has been wrong for the past 40 years’, he added, suggesting wryly that the Treasury’s ‘Green Book’ on capital spending priorities might need to be ‘ripped up’.
He insisted that Britain could emerge ‘as a global rail leader again’ if there were a stable pipeline of projects managed locally, where ‘teams now working on HS2 and East West Rail can wind down there and move seamlessly on to build the Liverpool – Manchester Railway or a Staffordshire Connector. We need to make a decisive break from the HS2 model; that’s the message, loud and clear.’
