Northern Powerhouse Rail will be great for economic growth across the north and “very much benefit” her constituency, Congleton MP Sarah Russell has said.
She was speaking after transport minister Heidi Alexander made a statement on the Government’s plans for Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR).
She said the Government would invest up to a further £45 billion to create a turn-up-and-go railway along the northern growth corridor of Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford, Leeds and Sheffield, as well as York.
There will be regular services onward to Newcastle and Hull, and to Chester for connections to north Wales, she said.
Ms Alexander said: “NPR will transform how people travel. We will end the hour-long waits if people miss their train. We will attract more people to a railway that will be faster, more accessible and more frequent than ever before.
“For northerners who have long complained about being treated as second-class citizens, my message is simple: those days are over.”
The Government has also announced plans to build a new rail line between Birmingham and Manchester to address capacity issues on the West Coast Main Line, following the cancellation of the HS2 northern leg. This will likely follow Northern Powerhouse Rail completion, potentially not before the 2040s.
Welcoming the announcement, Mrs Russell said: “Northern Powerhouse Rail will be great for economic growth across the north and that will very much benefit my constituency.”
She said her constituency was geographically located in such a way that it should be “great for travel to London, Liverpool and Manchester” but added: “Sadly, at the moment it is usually terrible for travelling to any of them.”
She asked the minister to meet her to talk about accessibility at Sandbach station, the quality and regularity of services across all those areas, and how to make Northern Powerhouse Rail deliver for Cheshire.
Ms Alexander said she would be happy to have a meeting with regional colleagues to discuss the issues raised.
Ambitious
Middlewich MP Andrew Cooper said his region was ambitious for its future.
“We are hungry to play our part in our country’s economic recovery and have been impatient for the Government to see our potential after so many years of undelivered promises,” he said.
“Today’s announcement to invest in NPR shows that this Government will meet that ambition head-on.”
He said the previous Government issued an instruction to the HS2 Phase 2b hybrid Bill Committee to remove the Mid Cheshire sections of the route from the bill, and asked whether the current Government intended to retain or withdraw this instruction? “If they intend to withdraw it, will she write to me with details of the status of any undertakings and assurances made by HS2 to my councils and constituents as part of the petitioning process, which would not be delivered for more than a quarter of a century and by an organisation that may, by then, no longer exist?” he asked.
Also taking part in the debate was Connor Naismith, MP for Crewe and Nantwich, who expressed “sincere and enthusiastic” for the announcement.
He said: “I welcome the announcement that the Government intends to build a new rail line between Birmingham and Manchester, but following 14 years of mismanagement of projects such as this, how can the secretary of state assure me and my constituents that these projects will actually be delivered?”
He also asked for re-assurance over how the plans will be insulated against “the backwards, anti-growth, populist forces that we know would reverse these plans in a heartbeat?”
Ms Alexander said the Government would give the public the confidence that “when it comes to rail infrastructure, we are spending taxpayers’ money wisely”.
She told Mr Naismith: “We will learn from the mistakes of HS2 and make sure we do the work properly to start off with, so we are not wasting taxpayers’ money in the way that the previous Government did with its oversight of HS2.”
Newcastle-under-Lyme MP Adam Jogee said he hoped the Government would support his calls for a direct line between Stoke-on-Trent railway station and Manchester airport.
“I have heard from countless people in Newcastle-under-Lyme about their experience of the disgraceful and failed HS2 project; people in my constituency want clarity, to be heard and to know that there will be no repeat of the distress and destruction they were forced to live with.
“I am grateful to the secretary of state for offering us a meeting with the rail minister, but we would benefit hugely from a meeting with the secretary of state herself as soon as possible.”
Ms Alexander said she would be very happy to join the meeting.
“On the issue of a direct service from Stoke to Manchester airport, I know that West Midlands Railway is considering the feasibility of amending its Stafford to Crewe service,” she said.
The other Cheshire MP to speak was Sarah Pochin, MP for Runcorn and Helsby and former mayor of Cheshire East Council.
Slower
She said she welcomed “all efforts to improve connectivity across the north for my constituents”, but said the Liverpool to Manchester journey time would be 20 minutes slower than it is currently.
She said “The secretary of state also talked about improving access to Manchester airport, but the link stops a mile outside the airport, and people have to take a bus from there.”
Ms Alexander said Ms Pochin claimed that she supported anything that improved the public transport network in the north of England, “but in September last year Reform came out with a clear objection to the Northern Powerhouse Rail scheme, telling the public that they should just accept their lot and be grateful”.
She added: “I look forward to hearing from her colleagues in future whether they have reversed their position on Northern Powerhouse Rail and finally seen the light.”
Reform UK said it would scrap Northern Powerhouse Rail if elected. The think tank Policy Exchange last year published a report opposing plans to build a new high-speed rail scheme from Liverpool to Manchester and Leeds.
It argued journeys on the NPR would take longer than on the existing service and said the Manchester-Liverpool section could cost up to £30 billion.
The report instead proposed a Manchester version of London’s Elizabeth Line that would provide a high-capacity east-west route across central Manchester.
Writing the foreword to the report, Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice MP compared NPR to the “historic disaster of HS2.
“The voters of the North do not want, and never have wanted, a handful of high-speed rail lines, serving a handful of big cities, at fares only business people on expenses can afford,” he wrote.
Mr Tice also advised companies against bidding for NPR contracts.
“To anyone tempted to bid for the Liverpool-Manchester high speed scheme, or the revived northern leg of HS2, I give this warning: do not bother.
“A Reform Government will spend the money instead on things the country needs more.”
