Enroute's Reaction to the Northern Growth Strategy

We welcome the long-awaited commitment to Northern Powerhouse Rail and an essential new route from Birmingham to Manchester.

Backing new and upgraded rail links across the North is backing sustainable transport, economic growth and breaking down the North-South divide.

The Government have this week set out their high-level vision for Northern Powerhouse Rail, as part of the Northern Growth Strategy, starting with much-needed upgrades across Yorkshire. We welcome this ambition – transformation on this scale will be needed right across the country to encourage modal shift to greener public transport. We keenly await further details on scope and key decisions over route options, including the future of Manchester Piccadilly station. Whilst we need to take some time to make the right decisions, we also want to see this project proceed at pace to deliver social, economic and environmental benefits as quickly as possible.

Having campaigned for urgent acceleration and prudent safeguarding of key high-speed rail sections (see Fix the Spine), we are pleased to see a clear declaration of intent to complete a newbuild corridor between the Midlands and Manchester, bypassing Britain’s biggest bottleneck and unlocking the potential of South Manchester for more local services.

Enroute is proud of our role in campaigning to raise the profile of high-speed rail as an integral part of the transport investment portfolio we need to respond to the climate emergency. We will continue to watch these developments with interest.