{"id":11069,"date":"2024-09-13T05:52:54","date_gmt":"2024-09-13T05:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/mayors-reveal-plan-for-new-manchester-to-birmingham-railway\/"},"modified":"2024-09-13T05:52:54","modified_gmt":"2024-09-13T05:52:54","slug":"mayors-reveal-plan-for-new-manchester-to-birmingham-railway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/mayors-reveal-plan-for-new-manchester-to-birmingham-railway\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayors reveal plan for new Manchester to Birmingham railway"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"PAPA<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A report found a new railway line was vital to addressing growing strain on the existing West Coast Main Line<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The mayors of Greater Manchester and the West Midlands have revealed plans for a new railway line connecting the two regions “at a fraction of the costs” of the scrapped northern leg of HS2. <\/p>\n

A private consortium has proposed the new 50-mile (80km) Midlands-Northwest Rail Link \u2013 running from Lichfield, north of Birmingham, to High Legh, south-east of Warrington \u2013 following a review commissioned by the mayors.<\/p>\n

The report found the new railway line was vital to addressing growing strain on the existing West Coast Main Line (WCML) and M6 motorway.<\/p>\n

The plan relies on investment from the private sector, and would cost substantially less than HS2 phase 2<\/a>, which would have seen a new high-speed railway built between the West Midlands and Manchester.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Doing nothing ‘not viable option’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Work on the London to Birmingham leg of HS2 is already under way, with at least \u00a322.5bn already being spent.<\/a><\/p>\n

But the consortium, led by infrastructure expert Sir David Higgins, found the project would not improve capacity north of Birmingham \u201cdue to the infrastructure constraints that remain unresolved without the later stages of HS2\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Doing nothing\u2019 on this corridor [between Manchester and Birmingham] is not a viable option, from either economic or operational perspectives,\u201d the review said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe transport network simply will not function effectively, and the nation\u2019s current investment in HS2 will be poor value for money.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"PAPA<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Work on the London to Birmingham leg of HS2 is under way<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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It found the WCML was \u201camong the least reliable railways in Europe\u201d, with much of the track network being built in the Victorian era. <\/p>\n

\u201cSections of the WCML north of Lichfield will not be able to support any significant increase in freight capacity in the north, Wales and Scotland,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said the failure to replace the railway would become \u201ca huge barrier to growth in the country that the government says it wants\u201d.<\/p>\n

“There is no way on God’s earth that the current West Coast Main Line and the M6 can be relied upon for decades,” he added. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you put in this extra connecting piece between those two areas, you will then have a network that can support growth in London, the south east, the Midlands, and, of course, the north west.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham says the new railway is vital <\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Sir David called on the new government to support the proposal, which is predicted to cost between 60 and 75% less than the proposed HS2 northern leg. <\/p>\n

The savings would be delivered through lower design speeds, ballasted track, UK rather than European standard cross-sections and building on the existing rail network. <\/p>\n

Sir David said: \u201cWhat we need now is for the new government to work together with the business community and Combined Authorities \u2013 take the practical steps to make a new rail link a reality.” <\/p>\n

More than \u00a32bn had been spent on HS2 phase 2 before it was scrapped, with the consortium proposing to use much of this land and infrastructure. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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PA A report found a new railway line was vital to addressing growing strain on the existing West Coast Main Line The mayors of Greater Manchester and the West Midlands have revealed plans for a new railway line connecting the two regions “at a fraction of the costs” of the scrapped northern leg of HS2. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[2971,1309,5280,127,3647,3443],"class_list":["post-11069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-birmingham","tag-manchester","tag-mayors","tag-plan","tag-railway","tag-reveal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11069"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11071,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11069\/revisions\/11071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}