Metro Mayors from across the north of England have branded the Government’s rail plans a “betrayal” and “settling for scraps off the table.”
Liverpool City Region Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram joined representatives from Manchester, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and Tyneside at a press conference reacting to the Government’s long awaited Integrated Rail Plan (IRP).
Published earlier today, the Integrated Rail Plan set out the Government’s approach to the northern leg of HS2 and the proposed Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) network.
Read more: 'Cheap and nasty' government rail plan will 'hold Liverpool City Region back'
According to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, the £96 billion put forward for IRP would slash journey times across the North with 110 miles of new high-speed line.
However, Northern leaders have seen many of their hopes dashed with the eastern leg of HS2 scrapped and a high speed network connecting Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford and Leeds reduced to up mainly upgrades with only some parts of the section receiving a new line.
There will be upgrades to the line between Liverpool and Warrington but journey times to Manchester will remain roughly the same - around 35 minutes.
What’s more the proposed works are not expected to be completed in the Liverpool City Region until 2040.
Liverpool was dealt a further blow when it was announced that hopes for a new inner city railway station - capable of housing HS2 and NPR trains - "would need to be locally funded."
Speaking at this afternoon’s press conference, Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram branded the decision as “patently unfair”.
He said: “What we want is HS2 and NPR coming into Liverpool. However Lime Street is too busy.
“The solution can’t be to pass on the cost [to build a new train station]. The overruns of Crossrail would have paid for our station. It’s patently unfair and it’s another broken promise.”
Speaking more broadly about the IRP, Mayor Rotheram was no more impressed by what he saw as a massive opportunity missed.
He said: “Northern Powerhouse Rail had the chance to be transformational for our area and the wider north and important for the UK on the whole. But many voices including my own said they were going to deliver transformation on the cheap. Instead they’ve chosen not to deliver anything at all.
“We were promised Grand Designs, but we’ve had to settle for 60 Minute Make Over.
“Today [the Government] have broken their promise to the north. It’s the same old story again and again.
"If the north had received the same per capita funding as London over the last decade, we’d have received £86bn more.
"That’s not a pop at London. They deserve modern transport infrastructure - but so do we.
“Once again they’ve asked us to settle for scraps off the table - a cheap and nasty solution to a problem facing nearly 15m people across the north.
"Believe me, these are scraps. These anaemic proposals will leave our economy, our residents and our country less balanced, and our planet worse off.
“This is not levelling up, it is holding us down.”
Mr Rotheram referenced the City Region’s significance as a port and free port and outlined that without better connectivity, the region will struggle for rail freight capacity - meaning more journeys on already busy arterial routes.
He added: “We’ve explained to Grant Shapps that the strategic importance of the port of Liverpool to UK PLC will grow year on year. We know at this moment in time that it’s difficult to get freight capacity onto rail. That is going to be exacerbated by freeport status.
“There are lots of things that are problematic for us as we have an economy that is growing in the city region. That’s why the Government still have time to work with us.
“It’s incoherent and we need some detail from the government and that’s why sitting down with the department and the secretary of state is the only way we’re going to get clarity on some of these things.”
Elsewhere West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin regarded today’s announcement as a “betrayal of the North” with South Yorkshire’s Mayor Dan Jarvis saying the work towards the plans were “a lot of pain for precious little gain.”
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham did however concede that the region he governs had the most to be pleased about in the report with Manchester set to be connected to HS2.
However he echoed a sense of solidarity with the areas that missed out on transformational change noting “we are one north” and that connectivity across the region “takes too long”.
He added: “Today we got PR, not NPR.
“If you’re going to do it, do it properly. If you’re going to level us up, level us up properly. It’s a half solution.”
Speaking in parliament today, transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: “Our plans go above and beyond the initial ambitions of HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail by delivering benefits for communities no matter their size, right across the North and Midlands, up to 10 to 15 years earlier.
“It is an ambitious and unparalleled programme that not only overhauls the inter city links between the North and Midlands but also speeds up the benefits for local areas and serves destinations people most want to reach.
“This plan will bring the North and the Midlands closer together, it will fire up economies to rival London and the South East, it will rebalance our economic geography, it will spread opportunity, it will level up the country.
“It will bring benefits at least a decade or more earlier.”
Louise Gittins, chairwoman of Transport for the North which tabled the initial proposals for rail investment in the North, said: "The announcement is woefully inadequate.
"After decades of underfunding, the rail network in the North is not fit for purpose.
"If we truly want to level up the country we don’t need words and promises. We need commitment. We need investment. We need Government to make good its pledge to the North and to deliver funding so we can deliver value back into UK PLC."
