After years of delays and political wrangling, the long-awaited plans for Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) have finally been given the green light. The announcement has been met with cautious relief from Labour mayors across the north of England, though significant questions persist over how the massive project will be funded and when passengers will actually benefit.
A Long and Winding Track to Approval
The journey to this point has been fraught. The concept of NPR was first conceived over 11 years and six prime ministers ago, originally envisioned as a fully electrified high-speed line to replace the region's ageing Victorian infrastructure. Its fate became entangled with the saga of HS2, the world's most expensive rail project.
When the northern legs of HS2 were scrapped by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in 2023, the pressure mounted for a credible alternative. NPR itself was significantly scaled back under successive Conservative governments. The latest iteration, hailed by ministers as "the biggest transformation to travel in the north in a generation," promises upgrades and new connections, but ambitions for a full "high-speed" network appear to have been shelved.
The Billion-Pound Questions: Funding and Timelines
While the political backing is now in place, the practicalities remain murky. Whitehall, haunted by the spiralling costs of HS2, has committed only £1.1 billion to the project up to 2029. A spending "cap" of £45 billion has been imposed for the period thereafter.
Crucially, any costs exceeding that cap must be found by northern leaders themselves. Potential funding mechanisms being discussed include:
- Increasing business rates, similar to the Crossrail levy in London.
- Implementing a new tourist tax.
- Additional borrowing by local authorities.
The final bill for combined authorities like Greater Manchester and Liverpool is expected to run into billions, raising questions about whether already-taxed businesses will accept another financial burden.
The timeline is equally vague. The first phase—upgrading lines between Sheffield, Leeds, Bradford, and York, including a new station for Bradford—is slated for completion "in the 2030s." Subsequent phases would follow. Most strikingly, work on a new line connecting Birmingham and Manchester is not expected to begin until the 2040s, making the unblocking of this critical Midlands bottleneck a distant prospect.
Mayoral Backing Amid Behind-the-Scenes Battles
Labour mayors have publicly endorsed the plans, but securing this agreement involved months of difficult negotiations with the Treasury. One mayor revealed that officials initially pushed "the cheapest" options, delaying an announcement. Greater Manchester's Andy Burnham held out until the last minute over funding concerns and the government's commitment to an underground terminal at Manchester Piccadilly.
Not all demands were met. Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire, has expressed frustration over continued government indecision on a tram network for Leeds, the largest city in Europe without a mass-transit system. Meanwhile, Hull has been left out of the core plans entirely, with its Lib Dem council leader labelling the omission an "absolutely shocking failure by Labour."
The government argues that investing in northern transport is an economic imperative. Officials believe poor connectivity is a key reason the north's cities lag behind major European counterparts in productivity. Estimates suggest that raising the productivity of the north's biggest combined authorities to the UK average could add £15 billion a year to the Treasury.
All these plans, of course, depend on Labour remaining in power after the next election—and potentially the one after that. For northern leaders and commuters who have endured promises and delays for over a decade, the hope is that this train, having finally left the station, will eventually reach its destination.
