Shapps and a signal of intent

Time to move Df T to the North?

REPORTS THAT Grant Shapps wants a Northern Transport Acceleration Council to oversee rail improvements – and, specifically, the key transPennine link between Leeds and Manchester – reflect the Transport Secretary’s ‘can do’ approach.

A year to the week since he was tasked with replacing Chris Grayling and reversing decades of under-investment by successive governments, Mr Shapps stripped Northern of its franchise, and put TransPennine Express on notice, before Covid-19 intervened.

Yet the fact that the Minister is considering yet another quango suggests that he, like so many here, is frustrated with the rate of progress and sympathetic to all those who want the Northern Powerhouse agenda accelerated.

For the record, it is nearly 10 years since the Government confirmed an intention to improve trans-Pennine rail links.

It is over five years since plans to electrify the Leeds to Manchester line were included in the Tory party’s 2015 manifesto. And it is two years since the summer of discontent on the region’s railways prompted The Yorkshire Post to spearhead an unprecedented joint collaboration with rival newspapers to demand the overhaul of services and infrastructure.

Yet, while there has been some improvements, and national recognition about the plight of rail services here, change is still painfully slow and is not helped by Transport for the North being denied powers, pounds and pence, a state of affairs which explains, in part, its own ineffectiveness.

As such, the latest plans by Mr Shapps are awaited with interest – especially if he has the courage to propose relocating the entire Department for Transport HQ to the North as another signal of intent to show that the Government is serious about transferring Whitehall powers, and people, from London to the regions.