‘It’s just NOT right!’ – Andy Burnham VOWS to ‘BANG ON’ until North ‘treated fairly’

The Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham speaks to GB News.

#politics #labour #conservative #manchester #transport

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Talk to me about transport in the north why is this such a hotly contested issue it’s 10 years this year since George Osborne came here and said we’re going to build a northern Powerhouse you’re going to have hs2 hs3 as it was called then which is a new East West line

Across the north better trains every day and how much of that has come true uh pretty much none of it so you know here we are 10 years on and it’s it’s just not right that people in the north of England have to put up with what they

Have to put up with every every single day we should have a modern Railway system that’s of an equivalent standard to London in the Southeast and until we get it I’m afraid I’m going to be like a stuck record on this on this theme it’s not just trains though of course

Obviously buses as well I know that’s been a big focal point for yourselves do you want to talk to me a little bit about buses yeah well great maner is the first place in England to put buses back under public control and already four months into the B Network we can show

That the regulated Services we’ve now got are better than the deregulated Services uh they replaced and in March uh we will take the B Network to Rochdale and oldum uh so it builds out into its second second phase and then by January next year we will have a London

Style system tap in tap out over bike bus and so they’ll all be integrated in a single system so you know we are working really hard to improve transport in great to Manchester but sometimes it’s the rail industry that are holding us back and undermining our our progress and what I’m saying

Today here is we need a plan to put trains under local public control as well as buses and trams so that we can build it all into a single London style system let’s Circle back to hs2 obviously that essentially fell apart what do the government need to be

Doing now to replace that I mean it’s so frustrating for us as I say because the government promised it to us all of those years ago and the way they did it last year you know in Manchester for their confence confence wouldn’t even talk to us you know sitting yards away

In a hotel but just wouldn’t even have the conversation with us and then just standing up and canceling it I don’t think that’s the way things should be done in this country um and we need to do something if you like coming out of it at the moment I think we’ve got a

Birmingham to Manchester hole in the transport plan for the country because the West Coast Mainline is at capacity it can’t take anymore the m6 Motorway is at capacity it can’t take anymore so how how are we going to ensure that transport across UK works if this kind

Of crucial Corridor up the the Western half of the country isn’t functioning properly um so it’s why myself and the mayor of the West Midlands Andy Street are developing a plan for better rail capacity between Birmingham and Manchester we met the Secretary of State last week and it was constructive

Discussion we had with him but we we’re going to have to come to an agreement there has to be a solution otherwise we’re looking at a century of rail chaos uh continuing because quite frankly there isn’t enough capacity now never mind when hs2 finally opens between London and Birmingham last question we

Hear the words leveling up bandid Deb about so often we’ve even got a government Minister for it do you trust this government to level up the north well no on the back of our experience as I say it’s a full decade now since George Osborne started what we now call

Leveling up by promising a nor Powerhouse rail Services have gone backwards in that time they are worse today than they were back then and that’s proof isn’t it that this was sort of more more sloganeering rather than actually uh putting in place plans to improve uh life here so I think we’re

Entitled to be skeptical of the government’s promises what I would like to move to is is the German system where they have a law in their constitution that there must be equivalent living standards in all parts of of Germany we need a UK equivalent of the same a law

So not so that leveling up can just be promises and never delivered it should be there should be a requirement on government ministers to work to ensure that people in the north of England have the same level of in infrastructure as people have elsewhere otherwise how can

We what how can we sort of all live in the same country because we don’t do we uh some people have better infrastructure than others and it’s always going to build this kind of sense of resentment uh that we’re not being treated fairly so we need big change

Actually uh and that’s the message that I’m giving out here today we can’t continue to see the railway going backwards in the next decade like we’ve just seen in the last