Going underground at Piccadilly ‘too expensive’

TRANSPORT Secretary Grant Shapps has dismissed suggestions that an underground option for the HS2 station at Manchester Piccadilly could still be considered, saying it “doesn’t work out” on cost grounds. Great Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham and Manchester City Council claim a surface station will squander development land and hamper scope for further connections in the future. Answering House of Commons Transport Committee questions on April 27, Mr Shapps said of the underground option: “What it would do is take a lot of money out of other parts of the network, so in the end it’s been concluded that’s not the way.”

■ Earlier in the session, the Transport Secretary acknowledged that “radical transformation” would be required in order to create an HS2 link into Leeds station. The Government’s Integrated Rail Plan (IRP) saw plans for the Phase 2 Eastern Leg of HS2 (which would have run to Leeds) curtailed beyond East Midlands Gateway in favour of electrifying the existing Midland Main Line to take services as far north as Sheffield. Mr Shapps said the questions about what was needed to achieve a link to Leeds would be answered “in detail” by a £100 million study planned as part of the IRP.