News titles across the North are calling on the Government to finally put its money where its mouth is when it comes to the region’s transport system.
With ministers poised to release their long-delayed plan for rail investment this week, politicians and business leaders are warning that it is time to replace rhetoric with reality where the North of England is concerned.
The Government won big gains in the North at the 2019, playing on long-time neglect of the region to win seats in ‘red wall’ areas.
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Now a group of newspapers and websites - including BusinessLive - to come together to call on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to keep his side of the bargain. Where rail investment is concerned, that does not mean a smattering of piecemeal upgrades dressed up as a transport revolution, ready for deployment on leaflets at the next election.
It means new inter-city lines to and across the North, a move supported by Northern leaders and promised in the Conservative manifesto.
Mr Johnson’s plan must include those Northern Powerhouse Rail lines. We are calling on ministers to deliver the project, in full.
That does not mean merely upgrading the existing Manchester to Leeds railway line while shunting other parts of the project down the tracks in the meantime.
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It means doing for us what successive Governments have done for the capital.
In Boris Johnson’s own words, just after becoming Prime Minister in 2019: “I want to be the PM who does with Northern Powerhouse Rail what we did with Crossrail in London.”
Leaders in the North East have backed calls from their counterparts in the North West and Yorkshire for the HS2 scheme to be delivered in full as it would free capacity and allow the East Coast Main Line to be be upgraded to allow for more services.
The region’s reliance on its congested, neglected Victorian railways is costing jobs and means our economy will continue to underperform.
And ministers cannot claim ignorance. They have long known that the North of England does not have the connections it needs.
As Boris Johnson’s own manifesto promised less than two years ago: “If this Conservative Government is returned to office, we will have an infrastructure revolution for this country. Now is the time to invest in Northern Powerhouse Rail.”
Indeed the Prime Minister was so enthusiastic about the Manchester to Leeds stretch of Northern Powerhouse Rail that he specifically promised to build it before the last election.
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“A new Trans-Pennine rail route between Manchester and Leeds will be confirmed today,” said a Downing Street press notice issued ahead of Boris Johnson’s 2019 speech at Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry. The press release promised ‘new intercity rail routes’, ‘with Manchester to Leeds as the first step’.
If that promise is broken – as appears likely from briefings given to the national press over the weekend – it will be added to a much longer roll-call of fine political words that never translated into reality.
Patience has now run out. Words are not enough.
One Conservative backbencher made the same point we are making today back in 2017, saying: “In the area of transport, we are still selling the North’s potential short. The ‘Northern Powerhouse’ is a wonderful phrase, but the people of Northern England deserve more than a slogan. They need action.”
That backbencher was Rishi Sunak, now Chancellor of the Exchequer. And we couldn’t agree more.
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BusinessLive has joined forces with other major Northern news titles - The Chronicle and The Journal in Newcastle, The Gazette in Teesside, the Manchester Evening News, the Huddersfield Examiner and the Hull Daily Mail - to publish co-ordinated front pages as part of our Choose the North campaign.
Our design - inspired by the poster for the classic 1990s movie Trainspotting - urges Boris Johnson’s Government to finally keep its rail promises by delivering Northern Powerhouse Rail and HS2 in full to deliver hundreds of thousands of jobs, shorter journey times and take cars off the road.
It comes ahead of the publication of the Integrated Rail Plan, expected this Thursday, where the Government will set out its plans for major rail infrastructure schemes in the North and Midlands.
Reach’s Northern titles, including the Liverpool Echo, come together under the banner of The Northern Agenda to lobby with one voice on behalf of our proud and diverse region of 15m people.
You can keep up with the latest political news from the North by signing up for The Northern Agenda’s daily newsletter, which drops into your inbox just before lunch every weekday. A weekly podcast goes into the big issues affecting the region in more depth. Sign up at www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk.