Tunnel vision
City leaders want new Piccadilly Station to go underground - and say the government’s favoured plan is ‘short-sighted’
PICCADILLY remains the busiest railway station in the north west, with more than 32 million passengers passing through last year.
And with Manchester city centre’s phenomenal growth expected to continue in the coming decades, it is only likely to get busier.
That is why the city’s leaders say they are determined to get the redesign of Piccadilly right, first time.
The next stage in that process is responding to the government’s refinements to the design of HS2, the high-speed railway network that will connect London, Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester via trains capable of travelling at 225mph.
Piccadilly will be one of the key stations on that network as it will also connect with Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR), the proposal to improve east-west rail connections.
In October, the government set out its current preferred design to accommodate all these services.
The authority is due to send back its formal response on Friday but the leader of the council Sir Richard Leese described the current plan as so short-sighted ‘it beggars belief’.
The government’s current design essentially proposes widening Piccadilly to accommodate six new platforms, for both HS2 and NPR.
It would occupy land from St Andrews
Street in the east, to
Duc ie
Street in the west.
In the consult a t i o n document, the government says: “The station would be constructed on two main levels.
“At platform level, a new combined entrance to the existing Manchester Piccadilly station and the proposed Manchester Piccadilly High Speed station would be provided. Passengers entering the station would either go forward for national rail services, or take the lift/escalator down to a lower level for High Speed services.”
The city council says this design is flawed on several fronts. Firstly, the surface design would be “at full capacity on day one of its operation,” they say.
This was the conclusion of the Bechtel external review, commissioned by the council, which also highlighted that the design would require trains on the NPR line to reverse into Piccadilly, and drivers to change ends mid-trip. Council leaders are also concerned that the proposed surface station will impact on its vision for growth in the area. It is also argued that it will not provide “optimal connectivity” to NPR services. In essence, the council wants to build downwards rather than outwards at Piccadilly. They believe this is the only way to deliver a fully integrated transport hub that accommodates all services. As the M.E.N revealed this summer, architects Weston Williams have published
a speculative l proposal of what such an underground station could look like.
A report sent to the council’s economic scrutiny committee says: “Our vision is for a HS2 & NPR integrated underground station design for Manchester Piccadilly, which has capacity for future growth.
“A ‘Build it Once, Build it Right’ strategic approach to transport investment at Piccadilly can ensure the earliest transformation of Piccadilly Station; avoid significant and longterm disruption and blight; and promote investor confidence.”
A new station, Piccadilly Central, is therefore planned.
The council argues that it will be important that the construction of the Metrolink and High Speed stations ‘are properly sequenced’.
Another problem is the future of Gateway House.
The council has argued for some time that the 1960s building on Station Approach, known as the ‘Lazy S’, must be demolished.
The current design proposes Metrolink being routed underneath Gateway House but the council says it is not clear if this is ‘technically possible’ while the building remains.
Highlighting the Piccadilly battle, leader of the council Sir Richard
Leese said that while the proposal for having an alternative Metrolink stop is a “real positive,” the government’s preference for a surface station “beggars belief.”
“Apart from taking enormous amounts of land unnecessarily”, Sir Richard argued, it has “no growth capacity.”
“The Department for Transport have now agreed and work is going on assessing the underground station, but I think the case for the underground station in terms of long-term value for money grows stronger all the time,” he said.
Coun Mandie Shilton Godwin added: “I was amazed to read in the report that there are real concerns about capacity, that capacity for HS2 would be reached at day one.
“That’s just not even safe - so I’m astonished that that’s still in scope.
“I think it is absolutely essential that we have this underground station.”
And Coun Marcus Johns, who represents the Deansgate ward, added: “Piccadilly station was built in the 1840s and the decisions that Victorians took are still dictating the way that we travel today.
“I think the government and HS2 Ltd seem quite short-sighted actually on what’s supposed to be a transformational, once-in-a-generation infrastructure project, that they aren’t able to look beyond the budget of the next five years and what this might look like in a hundred years time.”
Decisions the Victorians took are still dictating the way we travel today Deansgate councillor Marcus Johns