Boris Johnson is to unveil “the biggest public rail investment” amid concern over possible HS2 cuts.
Image source, Getty Images
A £96bn rail improvement programme will help transform services in the Midlands and northern England, the government has said ahead of the expected scrapping of part of the HS2 scheme.
Local service upgrades, bringing faster journeys, will happen up to 10 years earlier than planned, ministers say.
There has been anger from business over reports the high speed line between the East Midlands and Leeds will not built.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is due to unveil the plans later.
The Department for Transport (DfT) says its Integrated Rail Plan will improve journey times and capacity “from London and across the Pennines” and “strengthen connections between major cities in the North and Midlands”.
HS2 was originally meant to connect London with the city centres of Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. But sources have told the BBC the eastern leg to Leeds is set to be scrapped.
According to a report in the Sunday Times, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps will instead announce two shorter high-speed routes created in part by upgrading existing lines. One is said to run between Leeds and Sheffield, another from Birmingham to East Midlands Parkway.
The government is also expected to put money aside to explore setting up a tram service for Leeds.
About half of £96bn investment in rail is thought to be new money.
Speaking ahead of Thursday’s announcement, the prime minister restated its was part of the government’s “levelling up” strategy for the UK.
He said: “If we are to see levelling up in action now, we must rapidly transform the services that matter to people most.
“That’s why the Integrated Rail Plan will be the biggest transport investment programme in a century, delivering meaningful transport connections for more passengers across the country, more quickly – with both high-speed journeys and better local services, it will ensure no town or city is left behind.”
The IRP was initiated after the 2020 Oakervee Review into major transport schemes including HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR).
But the prime minister has come under pressure recently over claims the government intends to “water down” the planned rail upgrades.
There has also been outcry from some politicians and businesses in the north of England at reports there will not be an entire new fast line between Leeds and Manchester, via Bradford, under the NPR scheme. The improvements to the NPR east-west connections are likely to involve upgrades to existing infrastructure.
Newcastle City Council leader Nick Forbes said on Tuesday he was “absolutely appalled”, claiming the region would be “bypassed” when new routes were developed elsewhere.
Nick Garthwaite, director of chemical manufacturer Christeyns Ltd in Bradford and vice chair of the West & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, says he is disappointed by the reports that a new line between Manchester and Leeds may not be built.
“I feel the city and its people have been betrayed – we might not get the through railway station that Bradford so desperately needs and indeed was tacitly promised by government over a long period of time,” he told the BBC.
A key concern for businesses in Bradford is trying to attract more talent to come to work there, so not having good transport links is a problem.
“What I’m worried about is that these young talented people in Bradford will be thinking twice about staying in the city or going somewhere else for their career development,” he said.
“Do I want to be spending an hour and a half on the train?”
Mr Garthwaite said it was likely that businesses would also consider locating new factories in other parts of England.
His concerns seem to be shared by others. A student told the BBC that many young people were now moving away from Bradford and Leeds to live in cities like Nottingham and Manchester, because the transport links were so poor.
“I’m definitely not going to be staying in Leeds or Bradford because it’s not reliable enough,” she said.
There have also been reports that HS2 trains will still serve Leeds, but they will be put on mainline tracks north of the East Midlands rather than on high-speed lines. This could save tens of billions of pounds.
Speaking to the PA news agency on Tuesday, the transport secretary said: “[People in the North] should definitely feel optimistic.
“Not only are we going to spend a huge amount of money doing this, we are going to deliver it decades before it would have otherwise happened.”
Image source, Network Rail
Mr Shapps added that if he was transport secretary 15 years ago with responsibility for HS2, then “I would have started in the North and moved south, I think that would have made sense”.
He went on: “The Northern Powerhouse Rail, the Midlands Connect – all of those did not exist when HS2 was first mooted, but we are where we are and it’s being built and we need to make sure we connect it all up and that’s what the Integrated Rail Plan intends to achieve.”
However Mick Whelan, general secretary of train drivers’ union Aslef, accused the government of using “smoke and mirrors”, while breaking its promises.
“HS2 was meant to be a world-beater, and put Britain, the country which gave the railway to the world, back on the industrial and economic map. Instead, the Tories are letting us down,” he said.
“This government is a government of broken promises. It has announced Northern Powerhouse Rail an incredible 60 times – and I know because we’ve counted – and now it puts the project in the bin.”