Firing up the northern powerhouse engines

Last July, on just his third day in office as the UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson set out from Downing Street to visit to Manchester’s Science and Industry Museum. There, standing in front of Robert Stephenson’s iconic Rocket steam engine, he committed to investment in the region’s transport infrastructure and, specifically, to building Northern Powerhouse Rail.

He also emphasised the importance of the Manchester to Leeds leg of the transformational £39 billion rail network, which will eventually link Liverpool to Hull and Sheffield to Newcastle. This is investment which will provide a mix of new lines and significant upgrades to deliver fast, reliable journeys and ensure that millions of citizens across the region are better connected by rail. 

“We think politicians are listening but it’s not just an argument for investment in the North. It’s an argument for investment in the UK,” explains Barry White, chief executive of Transport for the North, the statutory partner to the Department for Transport which represents the transport infrastructure investment needs of twenty local authorities and business leaders across the north of England. 

“If you are serious about rebalancing the UK economy, investing in this kind of infrastructure is key,” he added. “Right now, we are like an aeroplane flying on one engine – the other engines are there, we just need to fire them up.”

HS2 to deliver capacity and sustainability

Of course, alongside the government’s commitment to Northern Powerhouse Rail, White is also clear about the need to press forward with plans for the multi-billion pound High Speed 2 project, and urges the ongoing Oakervee Review to confirm the project and, by doing so, give a shot in the arm to investment across the region.

“Delay or significant change to HS2 – and the half a million extra seats it would provide each day – would not only scale-back the economic opportunities for the North, it could delay both [HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail] substantially,” he says. “Right now, we need the future of HS2 to be resolved without delay, and fully aligned to the design and delivery of a new network for the North.”

It is not a simple “north versus south” investment debate, he adds, underlining that a project on the scale of HS2 is actually about making the whole of the UK more globally competitive. By boosting rail capacity, it is also about being more sustainable in terms of travel options.
“If you want people to stop taking internal flights, you need to have better rail connectivity than we have right now,” he says, pointing out that there are a lot of flights taken between, say, Edinburgh, Newcastle or Manchester and London, by people connecting to flights from Heathrow. “With HS2, there will be a much faster alternative connection – and, to date, HS2 hasn’t done a great job of promoting this regional connectivity.”

Where does the Hybrid Bill come in?

The Hybrid Bill process is a set of proposals for introducing new laws or changing existing ones. They are generally used to secure powers to construct and operate major infrastructure projects of national significance, such as Channel Tunnel Rail Link and Crossrail. 

“The Hybrid Bill enables you to actually do things, so we don’t want to have to wait until Phase 2B of HS2 gets its Hybrid Bill before ours can start – and we certainly don’t want to have to wait until after Crossrail 2,” he says. With HS2 Phase 2B expected to start its Hybrid Bill process in 2021, it would be 2024 at the earliest before Northern Powerhouse Rail could start. 

“So, first of all, we must be at the head of the queue to get in for a Hybrid Bill [as soon as HS2 Phase 2B is complete] and, secondly, why should we wait until the others are finished? If more resource is required in terms of clerical staff, we should not let that get in the way,” he adds. “We need to change how we do things in order to do it faster. As a country, it is about ambition.”

The devolved strategic transport plan

These major rail projects sit within Transport for the North’s bold Strategic Transport Plan, which outlines some £70 billion of investment in transport between now and 2050. This figure equates to around £2.3 billion a year for the next three years – and up to £27 billion on top of existing budgets which, it says, could add an additional £100 billion in economic growth and create up to 850,000 jobs.

As set out in its proposed devolved Northern Budget, TfN is also seeking a £1bn central government commitment over the next three years to help it to deliver on its vision and transport plan, including funding for the development of Northern Powerhouse Rail and other road and rail schemes.

He describes the challenge as being able to make decisions in the North for the benefit of the North, without having to navigate the usual political Treasury and DfT hurdles that might get in the way. He cites the success of the Scottish Government’s recent decision to press forward with re-opening the Border Railways as an example of real devolved power in action, delivering results for the community.

“We believe we could give more value for every pound spent,” he says, pointing out that long term commitment to relatively minor schemes, such as the northern rail electrification programme, can really grow the local skills base and build efficiency, so as to help public money to go further.

“People agree that devolution is a good thing, and that having decisions made closer to where that impact happens is positive,” he says. “I would argue very strongly that the Metro Mayors are a good example of devolution progressing.” 

A plan to transform roads and rail

For White, that also means working increasingly to influence the priorities and programmes set out for the region, in both Highways England’s Roads Investment Strategy and in Network Rail’s Control Period funding packages. So, when Network Rail’s CP7 programme starts in 2024 and Highways England’s RIS3 kicks off in 2025, the hope is that the North’s priorities will be fully embedded in the strategic thinking.

His vision is for the North to have control of its transport destiny via a dedicated budget for rail and road, allowing the region to make its own choices about prioritisation and so achieve the best value for every public pound invested. 

As you might imagine, his Strategic Transport Plan sets out a well-established set of priorities which includes a raft of projects designed to continue some of the congestion- busting work that was started across the region but never completed. Alongside the high-profile rail projects, that also includes partnering with Highways England and the local authorities to deliver major improvement to the road network. Transport for the North has submitted a pan-Northern bid for £700 million of investment in the region’s roads over the next five years, as part of the National Roads Fund. 

Transport for the North is also actively engaged with Highways England and the DfT on the development of strategic road studies, including plans to complete dualling of the A66, upgrades to the M60 in north-west Manchester and the proposal for a Trans-Pennine tunnel, transforming road connectivity between Sheffield and Manchester. “Our budget includes around £1bn of upfront spending to enable us to do the development work that will keep our project pipeline filled,” he says, highlighting that the current Northern infrastructure project pipeline has some £7 billion of shovel-ready road and rail projects which could be delivered by the mid-2020s.

Transforming services to create social value

“The need for investment is clear. It’s evidenced in the daily slog of today’s rail passengers. Timetabling conundrums, packed trains, passengers left on platforms – a congested network buckling under the strain of its own success,” he says. 

That said, improvements are already being seen as a result of this devolved strategy, with £1 billion worth of investment in new trains already committed and now being rolled out to boost seating capacity by 50% across the network – albeit slightly later than anticipated due to supply chain problems. 

Today, there are some 800 seats per hour between Manchester and Leeds, but that will rise to over 2,000 when new trains are up and running. This means that, as it cascades across the network, more people will get a seat and so be attracted onto the railways.
With the best will in the world, delivery of Northern Powerhouse Rail by 2040 remains a tough brief, given the UK’s track record of turning project plans into reality. Getting through the statutory process is critical and, as he puts it, “requires a lot of things to happen.” 

A regional pipeline for national success

The pipeline is also designed as a statement of intent to attract private sector partners, which White considers as critical to delivering the required level of national infrastructure investment in cities to ultimately bring in businesses, jobs and growth to the region. Knowing, for example, that Bradford is going to get better connectivity makes development in Bradford more likely to start. This, in turn, generates investment in housing, communications, power supplies and, eventually, assets such as electric vehicle charging networks – all of which will see the private sector playing a huge role.

Connecting the major powerhouses of the north with better and more reliable transport options will transform the entire region. Clearly Manchester and Leeds are big enough markets to drive their own successes. But it is cities like Bradford, Preston and Huddersfield which will benefit the most from improvements to the northern transport networks, with residents offered more choice about where to work, without the worry of a two hour journey home stuck on a train platform or on the M62. 

“Options for the future suddenly become much greater because of that connectivity, so what I’d like to see in the near future is year-in-year-out investment in the North that starts to put right that decade of underinvestment,” he says, underlining that better connectivity will start to actually create the Northern Powerhouse that has been talked about for so long.

“The environment is starting to shift; London increasingly provides young people with quite a poor lifestyle, with poor housing for which you pay a lot,” he adds. “The opportunities that the North can provide in the future are increasingly compelling, and that will only grow as connectivity increases.”

Investment in infrastructure is of utmost importance to drive forward our economy across the UK. We spend too much time retrofitting antiquated infrastructure which simply isn’t fit for the 21st century, and investment in all phases of High Speed 2 (HS2) and Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) will provide the platform for our northern economy to perform to its best ability. 

Accelerating the delivery of this vital infrastructure is critical. As such, it seems counterproductive that government can only process one Hybrid Bill at a time. There are a number of major schemes which may go through this process including HS2 Phase 2B, NPR and, in London, the proposed Crossrail 2 scheme. All these will be challenging the government for their relevant ‘slot’ in the parliamentary process and understand that being last in that queue could lead to a delay of up to 10 years before their Hybrid Bill process starts. 

An alternative for these major projects might be to follow the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) regime, established under the Planning Act 2008. The purpose of this Act was to legislate for these types of projects, and the process provides a clear and well-used legislative route with fixed examination timescales. 

Solving this planning conundrum is so important. The wider benefits of investment can be seen clearly on projects like HS2, which will provide better and more reliable services on the West Coast Mainline, both for passenger and freight users, and bring huge benefit to everyone using existing rail services. 

According to the HS2 business case, the ‘best-performing’ phase in Benefit Cost Ratio terms will be the new connection between Birmingham and Leeds. This provides major economic opportunities for the East Midlands – an area often overlooked in investment – with the proposed Toton Station and a significant new area of commercial development south of Leeds Station, the proposed northern terminus for Phase 2B of the project. 

It can only be right that the balance of our economy is addressed through such investment in infrastructure, providing new commercial and social opportunities across the whole country. The north of England offers a way of life which is different to the south in terms of affordability, landscape, skills and environment. Providing every part of the UK with the infrastructure needed to boost growth and enhance living standards is paramount for a successful economy.