Northern Powerhouse Rail


Northern Powerhouse Rail, sometimes referred to unofficially as High Speed 3, is a proposed major rail programme designed to substantially enhance the economic potential of the North of England. The phrase was adopted in 2014 for a project featuring new and significantly upgraded railway lines in the region. The aim is to transform rail services between the major towns and cities, requiring the region's biggest single transport investment since the Industrial Revolution. The original scheme would have seen a new high-speed rail line from Liverpool to Warrington continuing to join the HS2 tunnel which it would share into Manchester Piccadilly station. From there, the line would have continued to Leeds with a stop at Bradford. The line was intended to improve journey times and frequency between major Northern cities as well as creating more capacity for local service on lines that express services would have been moved out from.
However, in 2021, the Johnson government significantly curtailed the scheme in the Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands. Instead of building a dedicated high speed line from Liverpool to Leeds via Bradford, the curtailed scheme would use the existing main line from Liverpool Lime Street to Ditton then an upgraded freight line past Fiddlers Ferry power station to Warrington, then new line via Manchester to Marsden, West Yorkshire, where the line would join the upgraded TransPennine line to Leeds via Huddersfield.
In July 2022, the House of Commons Transport Committee expressed concern that the evidence base for the IRP was insufficient and made a number of specific comments. These included that
In October 2022, early on in her short-lived Premiership, Liz Truss said that her government's plans for Northern Powerhouse Rail meant a full new high-speed rail line all the way from Liverpool to Hull with a stop at a new station in Bradford. The succeeding government said in its November 2022 financial statement that only the 'core' parts of NPR would be funded. The project is classified as an England and Wales project, facing criticism from some Welsh politicians.
NPR forms part of High Speed North, the overarching proposal that includes improvements to both roads and rail. These developments are designed to improve transport connections between major northern English cities and transport hubs, including Liverpool, Manchester, Manchester Airport, Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, Doncaster, Sheffield, York, Newcastle and Hull, as well as other significant economic centres.

History

Background

The High Speed North project aims to improve public transport journey times between the major cities in the North of England. Present-day rail connections between cities such as Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds are slow compared to commuter journeys across Greater London. By improving transport connections, it is proposed that commuters will be able to travel to work more freely, allowing these cities to compete together as one large single economy, rather than competing against one another. The NPR scheme is promoted by the combined public transport authority Transport for the North and, according to analysis by TfN, currently fewer than 10,000 people in the North can access four or more of the North's largest economic centres within 60minutes. This could rise to around 1.3 million once High Speed North is fully delivered.
A plan to improve rail journey times in northern England, the Northern Hub, or, as currently called, the Great North Rail Project, was developed from a 2009 scheme to improve the rail network around Manchester. Schemes to improve the Leeds–Manchester line speed by 2014 were included in Network Rail's CP5 improvements, with an aim to reduce Manchester–Leeds journey times by 15minutes. In 2011, the approximately £290million electrification of the trans-Pennine Manchester–Leeds line was given funding. Work started on the electrification in 2013.

HS3 name

NPR has often been referred to in the press as "High Speed 3" or "HS3", in reference to the development of high-speed rail in the United Kingdom. The first high-speed railway line to be built in Britain was High Speed 1, the route connecting London to the Channel Tunnel, which opened 2003–2007. The southern phase of a second high-speed line named High Speed 2 is currently being constructed and is scheduled to come into service in the late 2020s. The HS3 designation implies the development of a third high-speed rail route.
Historically, the use of the term High Speed 3 has been loose—the House of Lords' Economic Affairs Committee stated that there was no firm definition of the route implied by HS3:
In June 2014, at a speech given at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, the incumbent Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, proposed a high speed rail link between Leeds and Manchester; the line would utilise the existing route between Leeds and Manchester, with additional tunnels and other infrastructure. Osborne argued that the northern cities' influence was comparatively less than London's and that the link would promote economies of agglomeration.
Osborne suggested the line should be considered as part of a review of the second phase of High Speed 2. Initial estimates suggested a rail line with a line speed, and Leeds–Manchester journey times reduced to 30minutes. Osborne estimated the cost to be less per mile than that of HS2, giving a cost of under £6billion. Initial responses to the proposal were mixed: Jeremy Acklam of the Institution of Engineering and Technology suggested that planners should look at connecting other northern cities such as Liverpool, and potentially North East England via York; commentators noted that the proposal could be viewed as an attempt to gain political support in the north of England in the run-up to the 2015 general election: the Institute of Economic Affairs characterised the proposal as a "headline grabbing vanity project designed to attract votes". The British Chambers of Commerce, Confederation of British Industry and others were cautiously positive about the proposal, but emphasised the need to deliver on existing smaller scale schemes.

Support and development

On 5 August 2014, an alliance of six city councils—Leeds, Liverpool, Hull, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sheffield—unveiled an initial regional transport plan linking their cities called 'One North'. This plan incorporated a new trans-Pennine high speed rail link connecting to the northern branches of HS2 at Manchester and Leeds, together with other regional rail developments, and the bringing forward of the construction of the northern part of HS2, as part of a regional transport plan including other road, intermodal port, and rail freight improvements. The estimated cost of the high-speed Manchester–Leeds rail link was circa over £5bn, with a proposed completion date of 2030; the entire project was costed at £10bn to £15bn. George Osborne attended the project launch, and provided his backing for the project. A report Rebalancing Britain published by High Speed Two Limited in late 2014 also acknowledged the need for improved east–west transportation links in northern England, and recommended the progressing of the schemes in the 'One North' report.
On 20 March 2015, the Department of Transport published plans for transport infrastructure improvements in the north of England, including proposals by the TfN working group; the TransNorth report proposed a number of options for improved rail links between Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle and Hull with line speeds up to. The proposals included new-build routes between the major northern cities, with cost estimates from £5bn to £19bn, and estimated journey times of one half to two thirds of current routes; alternative upgrades of existing routes were costed in the £1bn to £7bn range, and had lesser journey time reductions, of the order of 10–15minutes; the proposals were in addition to existing High Speed 2 route options for Liverpool and Sheffield-Leeds. The development options were planned for Network Rail Control Period 6.
In March 2016, the newly established governmental advisory body, the National Infrastructure Commission, chaired by Lord Adonis, reported on transport infrastructure projects in the north of England. It recommended bringing forward HS3 proposals, beginning with the Manchester–Leeds section. The NIC's report, High Speed North stated that "It takes longer to get from Liverpool to Hull by train than to travel twice the distance from London to Paris". It also recommended collaboration between TfN and HS2 Ltd on the design of the northern parts of HS2; and on the design of the improved Manchester Piccadilly station, together with Manchester City Council and other rail bodies. The Report suggested the development of a HS3 link after the completion of Network Rail's £2bn trans-Pennine electrification upgrade. A report by Arup commissioned by the NIC studied additional improvements on the Manchester–Leeds route, focussing on the Diggle route utilising disused track plus new-build tunnels, and identified potential journey time savings of between 1 and 10minutes. A preliminary study by Network Rail did not rule out that the aspirational Leeds–Manchester journey time of 30minutes could be achieved on the Calder Valley route. TfN's aspirational Manchester–Manchester Airport and Leeds–Sheffield journey times were identified as being achievable by the HS2 scheme, with modifications to through running to Sheffield city centre. At the 2016 Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, endorsed the general proposals by the National Infrastructure Commission for a high speed line between only Manchester and Leeds, with an aim of reducing journey times to 30minutes between the two destinations.
In August 2016, the Institute of Public Policy Research urged the Government to prioritise HS3 over HS2.
In August 2017, the former chancellor, George Osborne called for the Government to commit to NPR following backing of Crossrail 2 and scrapping of electrification schemes in July 2017.