It’s been nearly two years since the Birmingham-Manchester leg of HS2, the high-speed railway meant to link the entire country to London, was cancelled, and some northerners are still feeling disappointed. However, an announcement from the chancellor this week could make up for some of the train-related hurt in the region.
On Wednesday June 11, Rachel Reeves announced her spending review, which basically details the stuff the government wants to spend its money on, and what’s getting its funding cut. This can mean bad news for some, but luckily for the north, a long-awaited boost to its railways was among the projects to receive a cash injection.
The Northern Powerhouse Rail project was first proposed in 2014 before being promptly scrapped by Boris Johnson, the successive prime minister. The original plan was to build high-speed rail connections between multiple northern cities, and ever since it was announced that HS2 isn’t happening, Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, and Steve Rotherham, mayor of the Liverpool City Region, have been asking to revisit the idea.
Their proposal is a high-speed link between their two cities, which they say would ‘supercharge’ the local economy by up to £15 billion and remedy the fact that ‘Victorian infrastructure is now acting as a brake on growth’, according to Burnham. It would cut journey times by 20 minutes and have only three stops between Manchester Piccadilly and Liverpool Lime Street.
Andy Burnham argues that it would also be cost effective, explaining that: ‘A new Liverpool-Manchester railway would be shorter than both London’s Elizabeth line and East West Rail connecting Oxford and Cambridge, but would punch well above its weight in both growing the UK’s economy and better connecting our high-growth sectors.’
During Reeve’s speech to parliament she made it clear that her government intended to ‘take forward [its] ambitions for Northern Powerhouse Rail,’ so it looks like this plan could be closer than ever. But will it make up for the loss of HS2? That’s for the Scousers and Mancunians to decide.
Train travel with Time Out
Loco for locomotives? In other recent news from our railways, we rode Scotland’s poshest train – it costs the same as a week at The Ritz, this historic Scottish city is officially getting a direct train service to London, the UK train stations with the highest crime rates have been revealed, and Cross-Channel trains to Europe will return to Kent by 2029.
Did you see that the northern Eden Project is expected to open by 2028?
Plus: The UK’s first cabybara café is opening in Norfolk.
Stay in the loop: sign up to our free Time Out UK newsletter for the latest UK news and the best stuff happening across the country.