Government is cutting off manchester’s ambition
LABOUR BLASTS PICCADILLY STATION DECISION
TRANSPORT bosses have been accused of “cutting off Manchester’s ambition”, after plans for an underground HS2 station at Piccadilly were shelved.
Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haigh blasted the decision, saying the North is being left to “pick up the scraps” while investment is ploughed into rail in London and the South East.
Ms Haigh backed the MEN’s campaign, which is calling on the Government not to botch one of the most important transport projects ever to be built in the north of England.
It was widely expected that a new underground station on the northern flank of Piccadilly train station would be built as part of the HS2 line from London to Manchester, via Birmingham, Crewe and Manchester Airport.
But in April, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the underground option had been ruled out because it would ‘take a lot of money out of other parts of the network.’
Instead the Government is proposing a cut-price overground station which will see trains emerge from the ground in Ardwick before travelling on a milelong viaduct of up to 12 metres in height to reach the new surface station. Leaders in Greater Manchester say that’s short-sighted, will result in the loss of 500,000sq metres of prime development land, cut off Metrolink lines and blight the city centre by turning swathes of land into a building site. Ms Haigh told the Northern Agenda podcast: “This is just one of the many issues that were part of the Government’s integrated rail plan, which is anything but integrated.
“They’re not delivering what they promised. It is cutting off Manchester’s and the North’s ambition. “They are no longer delivering the Eastern leg of HS2 to Leeds, they’re not delivering full Northern Powerhouse
Rail, which would have connected our northern towns and cities and because they’re not delivering this station in Manchester, it means that HS2 can’t go on beyond Manchester. “They really are cutting off our ambition and, as ever, focusing all their investment in London and the South East and it’s the North that has to pick up the scraps.” Despite this, Boris Johnson at Prime Minister’s Questions last week said the Government “was gonna deliver Northern Powerhouse Rail”, a comment Ms Haigh branded “Trumpian”.
She said: “It’s a totally different ballgame opposing Boris Johnson, it is kind of Trumpian in the way he approaches politics just to say black is white and up is down.
“I never know with him with the integrated rail plan whether he doesn’t know or whether he’s just straight up lying because every time he gets asked he gives us a different answer. “He’s not a man of detail and he’s clearly losing interest fast in the so called Red Wall and in the North.”
With the integrated rail plan, I never know whether the PM doesn’t know or is just straight up lying Louise Haigh