Speaking to RailReview, Greengauge 21 Chairman Jim Steer said more recently: “The launch of IRP was poorly handled by Government. I don’t think ministers understood the expectations that had been set over several years prior to its publication, what with the wider Northern Powerhouse economic agenda set in the Cameron/Osborne era.
“Equally, I think the key stakeholders didn’t seem to realise that the Government effectively set a budget for these schemes a year earlier through the Rail Needs Assessment, a report from the National Infrastructure Commission. But projects like NPR had been worked up without any budget, and for five or six years, schemes were being dreamed up as if there was no tomorrow.”
Steer maintains that the NIC was right to apportion a budget for improvements in the North and Midlands on a fair basis, including pro rata to population levels. He suggests it was a necessary step to getting away from using cost:benefit ratios to decide which major rail investments should proceed across the nation - a process which inexorably in the past favoured London and the South East.
But the budget-capped IRP, according to Steer, also brought a dose of reality which many simply didn’t want to hear. He adds: “The country is now going into recession. It wasn’t when IRP came out. It begs this question, unfortunately: how much is now going to be available for investment in rail?”
Also responding to criticism of the IRP, Network Rail Chief Executive Andrew Haines said back in December that those complaining had done the industry “an enormous disservice”. He maintained that the economics of the railway remained very challenging, particularly at Treasury level. He added that the rhetoric that had developed around the IRP nationally has been “profoundly unhelpful, imbalanced and wrong”.
The biggest critics were (unsurprisingly) in the North, where the plan was described by some as the “great railway betrayal”. It was seen as not only a U-turn on its transport commitments, but also a reversal of the Government’s much-publicised Levelling Up agenda.
There were also concerns about the effective scrapping of HS2’s eastern leg. Originally planned to run from Birmingham to Leeds on dedicated high-speed track, following the Oakervee Review its future was looking less and less assured. With costs rising on Phase 1 of the route, from London to Birmingham, many had expected the eastern leg to become a sort of ‘sacrificial lamb’ to reduce the overall cost of HS2.
The IRP was seen as a double-whammy blow for the North, and officials there - including Transport for the North (TfN) - were quick to condemn the IRP. Responses from councils didn’t pull any punches. A press release stated that the IRP was the “wrong solution” for the whole of the North because the plan didn’t deliver long-term transformation.
Metro mayors, council leaders and representatives of Local Enterprise Partnerships covering the whole of the North convened the TfN Board in Leeds to agree a response. Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said: “We have always prioritised east-west connectivity across the North. That is something that unites us. I would say it is the single biggest transport challenge facing this country. It is not a sustainable situation.”
He added: “History would not look kindly on the Board if it just accepted this was all the North was going to get. We have been discussing these proposals for years and what we got was a different solution imposed on us without discussion.”
Days later, the leaders issued statutory advice to the Government, stating that the IRP in its current form was “not acceptable”. Louise Gittins, TfN chairwoman at the time, said: “Our statutory advice to Government is clear that they must think again. Instead of this top-down centralised approach, they need to reach out and work with local communities and businesses.”
She added: “Despite our deep concerns that the IRP is woefully inadequate, the TfN Board unanimously agreed that it wished to explore with Government funding options for the delivery of the preferred NPR. Options could include local contributions, including through harnessing local economic benefits. And the possible solutions suggested by TfN could help NPR move forward.”
Earlier this year, new Prime Minister Liz Truss appeared to have committed to building the NPR scheme.
Addressing a hustings meeting in Leeds, where she grew up, she made it clear that the coast-to-coast line was crucial for the future of the north of England. And speaking to the Northern Agenda newsletter, Truss said: “I want to build an aspiration nation that unleashes opportunity for all, no matter where you live or where you grow up. We need to drive growth and business investment to bring new and better jobs to the North.”
However, Truss didn’t explain how her government would pay for the new rail line, for which the most recent estimates put the final bill at more than £30bn.
In the Midlands, the IRP seemed to get a warmer reception when it was published. TfN’s counterpart, Midlands Connect, appeared to have accepted that the eastern leg of HS2 would be changed, and officials seemed more interested in the survival of their own rail upgrade plan - Midlands Rail Hub (MRH).
Costing much less than NPR, the Midlands scheme proposed a new high-speed connection between Birmingham and East Midlands Parkway, direct links onto HS2 for Derby, Nottingham and Chesterfield, and a commitment to the Midlands Rail Hub. The scheme had already been awarded £20 million in the previous budget to develop an outline business case, so there seemed little doubt that MRH would receive the green light when the IRP was published.
Commenting on the Government’s plan, Midlands Connect Chairman Sir John Peace said the announcement gave businesses and local leaders the reassurance they’d been waiting for.
“Although these plans are different in some respects to what
we’d expected, there are a lot of positives and lots of things to be excited about. Now that we have certainty, we must focus our efforts on delivery. Our challenge to Government is simple: it should move as quickly as possible to get spades in the ground and bring benefits to local people sooner.”
But what the statement from Midlands Connect didn’t say was that the IRP would have a negative impact on plans for improved east-west connectivity, especially to places such as Leicester.
Midlands Rail Hub proposes linking Birmingham’s Moor Street station into East Midlands services, which would also help to relieve pressure from the busy Birmingham New Street station.
