Boris Johnson is facing uproar from civic leaders and Tory MPs in northern England and co-ordinated media opposition as he prepares to scrap most of the eastern leg of the High Speed 2 railway and water down plans for an entirely new Leeds-Manchester line.
The prime minister is poised to cut back both projects in an “Integrated Rail Review”, which is set to be published on Thursday.
Kevin Hollinrake, Conservative MP for Thirsk and Malton, said the revised plan would provide fewer benefits for connectivity and capacity on the railways. “The worst thing the government can do is . . . to overpromise and underdeliver, that is what it looks like is going to happen here,” he said.
One senior Tory said that the move exposed that Johnson “has never had a plan for levelling up”.
“Now they’ve cancelled half of HS2, a project that’s enjoyed cross party support over a decade and over four PMs.” The person dismissed the new northern rail plan as merely “the same upgrade proposals that Network Rail had back in 2009”.
Several newspapers in northern England and the Midlands are set to publish virtually identical front pages on Tuesday calling on the government not to break its promises on rail infrastructure.
Dan Jarvis, the Labour mayor of South Yorkshire, said: “It seems like, as we feared, the government is going to try go get away with doing as little as possible to help the north.”
Johnson promised in July 2019, soon after entering Downing Street, that he would “be the prime minister who does with Northern Powerhouse Rail what we did for Crossrail in London”, referring to the strategic rail programme designed to transform the region’s economy and a new east-west line cutting through the capital. He made a similar pledge in his speech to the Conservative party conference last month.
Northern Powerhouse Rail originally included an entirely new high-speed link from Manchester to Leeds. Now some new line will be built from Manchester to a point close to Huddersfield but the rest of the route to Leeds will consist of upgrades to the existing “Transpennine” route.
Meanwhile the government is set to scrap the majority of the eastern leg of HS2 in a bid to save money, even though the original business case for the railway was heavily premised on building the line in full.
The line was initially planned to run from London to Birmingham and then on to Manchester in the west and about 115 miles to Leeds in the east.
The eastern leg will now go only 42 miles from Birmingham to East Midlands Parkway, near Nottingham.
One Tory MP in a “red wall” seat that flipped from Labour at the last election said: “Losing part of the eastern leg of High Speed 2 is very disappointing, it would be transformative for capacity in the north. So it’s absolutely fundamental to get a new Manchester to Leeds railway.”
Johnson said at a press conference on Monday that the plans would be “fantastic” for northern England but added: “Wait to see what is unveiled on Thursday.”
Bradford is one of the cities likely to lose out from the changes. Naz Shah, Labour MP for Bradford West, said: “This is Boris pulling the whole damn rug from under our feet.”
Jim McMahon, shadow transport secretary, said ministers had committed to both schemes in full “dozens of times” in recent years. “It is laughable that the government expects people in the north to be grateful for some half-baked and repackaged plans, as they attempt to quietly back out of the promises made on the vital major infrastructure projects those communities need so badly.”
The rail review is also expected to propose the electrification of the Midland mainline which goes from London to Nottingham and Sheffield.
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2021-11-15 18:45:48Z
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