Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham (PA Images / Alamy)
3 min read
Exclusive: Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has warned the government not to give his region a “cut-price infrastructure option” as discussions continue over Labour’s plan to deliver the Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) project.
The Labour mayor urged ministers not to set a “low ambition” for the north by refusing to build an underground station at Manchester Piccadilly, or by cutting Manchester Airport from the planned high-speed rail route.
NPR, first announced by former Conservative chancellor George Osborne in 2014, would run from Liverpool to York via Manchester, Bradford and Leeds. The Labour government has said it is committed to delivering the scheme, but has delayed setting out the details on how and when it will do so.
PoliticsHome understands the delay has partly been caused by concerns over the cost of delivering a tunnel between Manchester city centre and Manchester Airport. The tunnel was intended to be shared with High Speed 2 (HS2) trains travelling north from Birmingham, but the business case for it was weakened after former Tory prime minister Rishi Sunak made the decision to axe HS2’s ‘northern leg’ in 2023.
Burnham said that removing the airport from NPR’s route would be a “ludicrous” idea.
“Manchester Airport is the long-haul airport for the north of England, and good connectivity to it is essential for Bradford, Leeds, Liverpool, as part of their own selling point for investment in their regions,” he told The House magazine.
Using that tunnel, the mayor argued, could allow the airport to be linked up with HS2 in years to come, providing links not just east and west but also south to Birmingham.
“If you do that, you don’t need a third runway at Heathrow, because large parts of the Midlands and the north of England would find it far more convenient to use Manchester Airport,” he said, pointing out that the latter already has two runways and is operating below capacity.
“The idea that they would chop out Manchester Airport [from NPR], while moving the M25 to accommodate a third runway [at Heathrow], I think would be one of the most London-centric things ever, if that is what the Treasury are deciding to do.”
Officials are also thought to be considering whether or not to agree to Burnham’s demand that NPR trains use an underground station below Manchester Piccadilly, rather than coming in above ground.
“I have made this plain in recent days to the Treasury,” he said. “We will never accept anything other than an underground station at Piccadilly.”
When HS2 was planned to come to Manchester, it was expected to use land next to Piccadilly. The mayor is adamant that the site must not now be used to accommodate NPR.
“For us, that land is the prime economic development opportunity of the north of England,” said Burnham, “and so we’re never going to accept that we would give up that land for a sprawling railway station”.
He will refuse, he said, to see a “low ambition set for us by a cut-price infrastructure option”, adding: “Maybe that’s the sticking point, but it’s not one that we’ll be moving off.”
In response to Burnham’s remarks, a government spokesman agreed that the north “has been stuck with second-rate transport for too long” but said “we are fully committed to righting that wrong, investing in upgrades and getting spades in the ground”.
They added: “We reaffirmed our commitment to the Northern Growth Corridor in the Budget, and we continue to engage with mayors to deliver NPR. This is a major investment, and we are committed to getting it right – taking time to plan carefully, learning from past mistakes to truly deliver for the north.”
