Grayling’s pledge over high-speed rail for city

TRANSPORT SECRETARY Chris Grayling has described his “very strong and personal commitment” to improving Bradford’s transport links as he gave his strongest indication yet that trains on a proposed high speed rail link would stop in the city.

Speaking to business leaders and northern Conservatives at the party conference, Mr Grayling said Bradford was “woefully served” by its rail services.

City leaders have been lobbying for Bradford to have a station on the proposed Northern Powerhouse Rail, which would see journey times to Manchester and Leeds reduced to 20 minutes and seven minutes respectively.

Mr Grayling, whose department has been accused of not investing enough in northern transport, insisted the Government was overhauling the region’s creaking infrastructure.

He said: “The last thing I want to touch on is a very strong and personal commitment to making sure that Bradford benefits from this. It is really important to remember that the North isn’t just about Liverpool and Manchester and Newcastle and Leeds and Hull, it is also about towns and cities up and down the region. That is why I am so committed to sorting out some of the issues in Cumbria.

“I am particularly aware of the fact that Bradford is a great and important centre in the North which is woefully badly-served by transport, rail in particular.

“Although there is a lot of work to be done, I really want to see Northern Powerhouse Rail come to Bradford, and I am committed to making sure that really does happen, because Bradford needs better links.”

GETTING THE Government to approve a high speed rail scheme connecting the biggest cities of the North is the key to giving the region’s growth a “turbo charge”, according to a leading northern transport official.

Barry White, the chief executive of strategic body Transport for the North, told a fringe meeting at the Conservative conference that his organisation would be submitting the business case for Northern Powerhouse Rail to the Department for Transport in December.

The project would see journey times between Manchester and Leeds cut to 30 minutes and put 1.3 million people within an hour of at least four of the North’s main economic centres.

Speaking at an event called The North is on the rise: What more

does it need? and asked to identify just one thing the North needed to thrive, Mr White replied: “The North is a wonderful place already but it needs Northern Powerhouse Rail to give it that turbo charge.”

Asked if that meant that government support for the scheme was not guaranteed, he replied: “I would never presume anything.” He added: “We are looking for the Government to approve it in the first quarter of next year, so we can continue the work from April onwards. That is the answer we need. Knowing that is going to happen, even knowing that will start to give a boost to areas.”

Transport for the North achieve statutory status earlier this year, but is still reliant on central government for funding and does not have the same borrowing or revenue-raising powers as Transport for London.

During the event Mr White said his organisation could do a lot with its current powers, but admitted that there was “clearly an appetite” for TfN to have greater powers in future.

Another speaker, Geoff White, policy manager at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, criticised the way devolution of powers and funding was happening across England.

Asked what he would like to see to help the North, he said: “More devolution, more quickly, but joined up.” He added: “Areas like Yorkshire shouldn’t have to wait until the politicians can agree. Someone needs to get in there and crack heads together.”