Northern Powerhouse Rail must be next in the queue

Northern Powerhouse Rail must be next in the queue of major transport projects to receive Parliament’s backing, our conference has heard. 

Steve Hunter, Head of Transport at Warrington Council, told the Northern Powerhouse session that plans for HS2B must make provision for the cross- northern fast line: “Without it, NPR won’t happen.”

And the government should prioritise NPR, Hunter said: “It has to be the next hybrid bill after HS2B: we need to be next in queue not Crossrail 2.”
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Hunter also told delegates that including Warrington on the NPR route could unlock 9,000 homes across the town and the new town’s waterfront area, which has been hard to regenerate due to largely being cut off by the River Mersey and the Warrington ship canal: “Fingers crossed we are on the map.”

NPR could also slash rail journey times between Warrington and the north of England’s major cities, he said. Most notably, the restoration of direct train services with Leeds would cut travelling times between the two centres from one hour and 45 minutes to three quarters.

NPR would also deliver ‘transformational change’ to Warrington by bringing the new town within ten and nine minutes respectively of Liverpool and Manchester airport.

Transport for the North (TfN) received what it wanted from the Treasury for Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) in last month’s Budget. Tim Wood, NPR Director at TfN, said the sums allocated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the project had grown from £10m two years ago to £37m in last month’s Budget.

He said: “You can see the progress growing. what we asked for and what we got was the same number. The government has confidence in what we are doing. This is well thought out and evidence based. It will give you far greater connectivity and capacity and speed.”

The project could dramatically improve the performance of the overall UK economy by boosting the north of England, Wood said: “We can’t as the northern economy carry on as we are. To go from Leeds to Bradford is eight miles but takes 27 minutes currently. That is absolutely not right for a 21^st century. This UK economy has one engine running, the south east.”

He told delegates that the strategic outline business case for NPR is due to be presented to the project’s partners on December 6th after which it will then be sent to the secretary of state for transport.

Wood said that NPR could deliver £100bn of economic growth and 850,000 jobs at a cost of £50 per person per year for the next tree decades. HS2 and NPR are complementary projects, he said: “We will be using some of their track to drive some of their services: we can’t have one without the other.”

Angela Barnicle, Chief Officer for Economic Development at Leeds City Council, agreed: “Infrastructure for NPR is utilising HS2 infrastructure, this is not an either or.”

But it is important that improvements to the north’s rail network should not wait on the delivery of HS2, she said: “There are things we can do before and while that is going through, this is why we are pushing Network Rail really hard to deliver incremental change this year and not in the next con period.”

Paul Griffiths, Phase 2 Managing Director at HS2 defended the pace of NPRs delivery. Pointing out that it has taken more than 40 years to develop London’s Crossrail since when it was first proposed, he said: “It takes a huge amount of time, but these things do take time. These things are difficult, you can’t just get on with it: we are really motoring and making real progress.”

 

PBA, now part of Stantec; Our perspective on Northern Powerhouse Rail

Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) is now seen as an integral part of the Northern Powerhouse project – and as an integral part of HS2. This is welcome, but it is a high stakes strategy. There seems little doubt that there is pressure from national Government on the cost of HS2, and the case for investment needs to made – crystal clear – to ensure that the benefits of NPR now envisaged can be delivered.

NPR can play a transformational role. All our speakers conveyed remarkable conviction about the current state of inter-urban rail transport, and the need for the project to transform travel times as a key factor in enabling the north to act in concert as one, more closely aligned, high value economy.

There is common ground across the Northern Powerhouse that intra-regional economic inequalities are both severe, and of at least as much importance to solve as the inequalities between the north and south. NPR is critical to tackle this issue, by providing the opportunity for local people to access wider education, training and employment opportunities across the region.

It also has the potential to support other inequalities, such as health, wellbeing, and to provide access to other societal support services. In a recent report for the Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA)), (The social benefits of infrastructure investment, December 2018), this under reported function of major infrastructure investment is identified as being of great significance, and in need of more consistent and compelling reporting.

The Blueprint for A Great North Plan, now being promoted by Institute of Planning Policy Research (IPPR) North and the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), in collaboration with the public, private and civil society across the north of England, consists of four key strategies covering the economy, transport, people & place, and natural assets.

PBA, now part of Stantec, is delighted to be working with IPPR North and RTPI to prepare the spatial framework – Ambitions for the North: People and Place which will take a holistic view of infrastructure development to take account of the wider economic, social and environmental benefits.

Together, these strategies will help to define a vision for the north and its economy upto 2050; an appropriate approach to governance and delivery capable of providing the leadership necessary to support greater devolution and collaboration; and the prospectus for the North which will act as an investment plan for national and international investors.

This work will help to underpin the case for NPR. In recent months, the Department for Transport has been consulting on its transport appraisal procedures, and it has become very apparent that the ‘strategic case’ should lead the other aspects of the business case, and that it is critical to success.

This brings a real focus on the need to combine the strategic work of the Blueprint for A Great North Plan together with the technical work of the scheme planning and delivery to create a compelling narrative for investment. It would be a shame if the evident benefits of HS2 and NPR were lost on the cross of a national cost savings agenda, when there is now so much to be gained.
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