Transport secretary aims to accelerate investment
COVID HAS PUT SPANNER IN WORK
TRANSPORT Secretary Grant Shapps has said he hopes to step up investment in transport projects across the North once the coronavirus pandemic is under control.
Speaking to The Chronicle, he said the Government had been backing transport schemes even during the pandemic. But he said the vaccine would provide an opportunity to shift the focus away from the health crisis.
Highlighting the ongoing modernisation of the Tyne and Wear Metro, he said: “There’s been expenditure on all sorts of things including with Nexus in Newcastle. That funding’s come in during Covid.”
The Government also recently announced £146m to speed up improvements to the A66 trans-Pennine road, he said.
“There’s been a lot going but we recognise that Covid’s cost us 10 months, it’s going to be a year before we come out the other side, and we’re very anxious not to let that hold us back, and we want to make up that time.”
Mr Shapps will later this month consider proposals for building the east coast leg of HS2 and the proposed Northern Powerhouse Rail line across the Pennines.
The Government is to introduce legislation in early 2022 allowing construction of the western leg of the HS2 high-speed rail line, running between Birmingham, Crewe and Manchester.
But work on the eastern leg, with a new line between Birmingham and Leeds and high-speed trains running on existing track between Leeds and Newcastle, has been paused.
Instead, the Government is looking at proposals to integrate the HS2 with the Northern Powerhouse Rail line, with the projects re-branded High Speed North.
“Between now and the end of month the National Infrastructure Committee will publish their findings, having looked at all of this.
“They have studied the amount of infrastructure we can essentially afford to pay for. They will make recommendations to a committee I chair, called the Integrated Rail Plan.
“That is the one saying OK, we’ve got HS2, we know what we’re doing on the western leg. On the eastern leg, Northern Powerhouse Rail wasn’t a thing when this was implemented.
“So, the integrated rail plan will set all of that out including how High Speed North, or Northern Powerhouse Rail, can proceed.”
A project the Transport Secretary wants to ensure goes ahead is the proposed new Northumberland rail line, creating new services between Northumberland and Newcastle. A consultation on this project is about to end.
“I’ve been to visit and I’m absolutely determined that it should happen. Everyone wants to see that go ahead.
“There is a process. It is very much being led now by the acceleration unit, which is a unit that works for me. We are helping to push the Northumberland line through as soon as possible – Newcastle, Blyth, Ashington – we are fully behind it progressing and doing so in this Parliament.”
Mr Shapps said the Government would encourage commuters to start using public transport again, once the vaccine had been widely rolled out.
The Transport Secretary was speaking following a meeting of the Northern Transport Acceleration Council, which he chairs.