After Crossrail London, Crossrail North

The Northern Way has published new evidence on the economic impact of investment in transport to improve the north’s connectivity with London and the rest of the UK.

The Northern Way, a unique collaboration led by the three northern Regional Development Agencies to close the north-south divide, is calling on the government to act now on its rail white paper commitment to consider the case for new rail links between the north’s cities and London.

Our work values the wider economic benefit of investment in north-south and east-west rail links at over £10bn, whilst also contributing to a more environmentally sustainable economy.

These wider economic benefits come about through reducing travel times in city-to-city and business-to-business access. They appear not to have been taken into account in the rail white paper and are additional to those previously calculated for high-speed rail.

The economic benefits would arise not just in the north. Around £3.5bn would be in the north, £3.5bn in Greater London and £3bn in the rest of the country. As a proportion of the north’s economy, however, the impact would be over twice what it would be in the south.

Our research highlights that the importance of east-west trans-Pennine services has in the past been undervalued. The importance of a new high speed trans-Pennine link in addition to a line on each side of the country is very clear. There are very worthwhile benefits for the north east and Yorkshire from a high-speed line on the east side of the country and for the north-west from a high-speed line on the west side. But a trans-Pennine link adds more than 40 per cent to the wider economic benefits that we have identified for the north.

What a trans-Pennine link adds is better region-to-region and city-to-city connectivity within the north, as well as better connections from the north-east to the west Midlands and from the north-west to the east side of the country. A trans-Pennine link would help create a new economic geography for the north of England and the country as a whole.

In recent weeks we have seen the reality of two-hour journey times between London and Paris. We also know from the rail white paper that in the coming years the government will be giving further consideration to new conventional rail line options as a means of dealing with the long term capacity problems on the existing west coast, east coast and Midland main lines and also across the Pennines.

What the Northern Way is saying is that the government should start this assessment soon and must recognise that:

• growth in the north’s economy will generate and require additional business travel between the north and London and the south-east for which new capacity will be required;

• the successful delivery of the Northern Way’s goal of closing the £30bn productivity gap in the north’s economy will result in faster rates of passenger growth than the government has assumed in the rail white paper;

• there are significant wider economic benefits from high speed links for the north and the country as a whole that have not yet been taken into account;

• an opportunity exists to create a new economic geography by developing connections between the growth areas in the south and the north’s resurgent city regions.

As Tom Riordan, chief executive of Yorkshire Forward, has said: ‘It is roughly the same distance from one end of the Central Line in London to the other as it is between Leeds and Manchester city centres. This proposal for a ‘northern Crossrail’ connecting all of the north’s cities as well as faster links to London would not only add significant value to the north’s economy but could change the perception of investors, businesses and graduates about the north’s potential as a career and investment destination.’

This new evidence about the economic benefits of high-speed links is one element of our work in taking forward our short-, medium- and long-term transport priorities, also just published.

The priorities we have highlighted will bring about substantial economic growth for the north, but one of our most important findings is that, taken together, current proposals on the table for transport, investment will not maximise our economic growth —more must be done. We are now calling on the government to take this into account in its Comprehensive Spending Review.

Key areas where the Northern Way will focus its efforts include:

• Manchester rail hub — the rail network in and around central Manchester is the most damaging rail bottleneck in the north which impacts on passenger services that cross and link Manchester with the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber, Liverpool and central Lancashire, and constrains the movement of freight out of the north’s ports;

• north-south and trans-Pennine rail strategies to maximise the north’s economic growth;

• ongoing work to secure the rail white paper commitments for new rolling stock for the trans-Pennine and northern rail franchises;

• ongoing work to make the case for rail gauge enhancements so that the containers used for intercontinental traffic can be moved out of the major northern ports by rail;

• encouraging the development of smart cards across the north, similar to oystercard in London, for use across the bus and rail networks;

• ensuring any investigation of national road user charging by government benefits the north and returns the revenues into the north’s economy.

We will also press the government and Highways Agency to take action on a range of roads to improve port access, as well as addressing currently congested parts of the motorway and trunk road network.

In addition to these priorities, route action plan measures involving active traffic management will be needed on the M62, M56, M6, M60, M61 and M1 if the government decides not to proceed with a system of national road user charging in the long term. With road charging, evidence suggests such measures may not be needed and other proposals such as the A66 between the A1 and M6 could come to the fore with the emphasis in priorities also shifting further to strategic public transport measures.

Commenting on the role transport plays in the overall Northern Way growth strategy, Andrew Lewis, director of the Northern Way, said: ‘Without these prioritised investments and accompanying measures to manage demand, congestion bottlenecks across the north will prevent us meeting our targets for sustainable economic growth.’

Professor David Begg is Director of the Portobello Partnership transport consultancy, Chair of Tube Lines responsible for maintenance and upgrades on the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines, publisher of Transport Times, and a visiting Professor at Plymouth University. Previously David has been Chair of the Commission for Integrated Transport and a non-executive director at the Strategic Rail Authority.