Report
attached
Government should welcome and take forward the recommendations of
the ‘Rail Needs Assessment’ for the Midlands and the North,
published today (15 December2020) by the National Infrastructure
Commission.
The Report says that the need for rail improvements is greatest
in the regions, and that therefore priority should be given to
upgrades in these areas and, if the money was available,
prioritising regional links.
The report also emphasises the need for concentrating on East
West links in the North Liverpool – Manchester – Leeds/Sheffield
and beyond.
said ‘I welcome this report and its emphasis on
delivering rail improvement in the North and Midlands regions
where the economic need is greatest. It is the first report from
a government agency that challenges the runaway costs of HS2 and
recommends that any enhancements beyond upgrades should be
dependent on whether the core schemes are delivered ‘on time and
within the budget’. Applying this to HS2 should mean cancelling
it tomorrow and spending the money in the regions – where there
are many shovel ready projects, including electrification of the
Northern parts of the Midland Main Line and improving the
Castlefield corridor in Manchester.’
The Report rightly states that prioritising regional links are
more likely to bring higher benefits overall, emphasising the
need to connect major towns and cities, but it also reminds us
that the focus should be on journeys that people are most likely
to make – into cities from the surrounding area (in 2018-19 – 60%
of rail journeys in Yorkshire and Humberside) compared to 10% to
London.
It is a very sensible and pragmatic report, and is very much in
line with much of what I said in my dissenting Oakervee report
dated January 2020
I do urge political leaders in the North to welcome this
realistic report into the real economic and transport needs of
their regions – for upgrades and regional links – ones which can
most easily be delivered on time and to budget. As the Secretary
of State for Transport said yesterday, ‘we have only one pot of
money’. He should also reinstate into this pot the £1bn that was
removed from Network Rail’s enhancement budget in the recent
Spending Review.
I strongly support the overall view of the National
Infrastructure Commission which clearly thinks that this pot
should be spent in the Regions.’
