Following some big decisions around #hs2 and #NorthernPowerhouseRail, this session at the Transport for the North Annual Conference 2024 explored how we can transform the #rail network in the North of England and what’s needed from services in the region.
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Speakers for this session were:
Darren Oldham – Transport for the North
Mayor Andy Burnham – @greatermcr
Anna-Jane Hunter – WPA
Nick Donovan – @NorthernRailwayOfficial
Chair: Maria Breslin – Editor, @liverpoolecho
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Transport for the North is England’s first Sub-national Transport Body. It was formed to transform the transport system across the region, providing the infrastructure needed to drive economic growth.
TfN is making the case for pan-Northern strategic transport improvements, and its Strategic Transport Plan (STP) will rebalance decades of underinvestment and transform the lives of people in the North.
So it’s the burning question how do we transform the rail network for the north following some big decisions around hs2 and Northern Powerhouse rail we’ll be exploring how we can transform the rail network in the north of England and deciding what’s needed from our Region’s rail network I’m joined on stage here by
Mayor Andy Burnham mayor of Grace Manchester Anna Jane Hunter who partner at Railway Consultants Winder Phillips Associates Winder Winder Phillips Associates I apologize Darren oldum his deputy chief executive officer and Rail and Road director for transport for the North and Northern managing director Nick Donovan um I’ll be opening up the floor
For questions um but first of all can I ask our panel to to open up this session starting with you may bam I think I might go to the leton actually because it’s I’m right behind it otherwise nobody will be able to to see thanks Maria um good to see such a a
Full a full room shall I answer the question do what politicians don’t normally do and try and give you a very direct answer the question of the session being how do we transform rail in the north um the first answer to that surely has got to be by doing something
Different to what we did in the last decade it’s uh 10 years this year since George Osborne came to Manchester and and promised a northern Powerhouse um that was going to mean hs2 hs3 as it was then called now Northern Powerhouse rail uh better uh everyday services on the existing Network um You
Name It We were going to be promised uh all of this uh and barely any of it has happened in fact uh new analysis that tfgm have done for me uh says that rail services are po poorer now than they were in 2016 um that’s not good is it uh not
Good at all and then if you look at the infrastructure uh situation we spent all of those years after 2014 when George Osborne announced uh that big plan saying that you know let’s have a place-based approach to this what’s the railway going to enable for greater
Manchester and it was like a dialogue of just on two different levels we could never get past a determination to just build to a set envelope and a surface station at Picadilly and there was just not to be any discussion uh about that and it was just very frustrating surely when
You think about rail in the north it’s what it enables the north to be what it does for our places rather than just giving us a cut price scheme because that’s all the government prepared to pay for it can’t be that that way can it we have to have a bigger ambition for
What the railway can be and we have to learn from the hs2 experience it’s not the way to deliver infrastructure actually whiteall needs to learn from that experience because whiteall has shown that it can’t deliver major infrastructure and why is that well if you do it in that top down way
Where they don’t listen to people at a local level and you have the situation where you’ve got the constant ministerial merry go around where a new Minister comes in and wants to look at it again that is what imports delay complexity and cost into a major infrastructure
Scheme if you do it in a more place-based way from the bottom up then I think you deliver infrastructure in a better way because you link it to the place and actually here at this level we don’t have that kind of ministerial merry go around we have that kind of
Long-term set direction for the what we’re trying to achieve for our places and that’s that’s something that that needs to now be kind of I think the starting point when it comes to delivering infrastructure going forward so to be fair to the government when they made their announcement on hs2 in Manchester in
October they did at least say that uh Steve rotheram and I would have a role in looking at the routing for Northern Powerhouse Rail and obviously we not just done that alone we’ve worked with the Cheshire authorities with Warrington uh talked to colleagues in Lancashire
And we’ve quickly come up with a uh with a with a vision um and we’ve put that back to the government now with regard to Northern Powerhouse rail using the the uh the hs2 routing through greater Manchester via Manchester airport so you know that shows you that we can do it
And they should trust us more they should work with transport for the north more uh to deliver infrastructure uh working working with us kind of final point I’ll make kind of builds from everything I’ve said really H how do we transform rail in the north of England I
Think there’s a simple answer to the question from a both an infrastructure point of view and an oper operation point of view and it’s three words local public control that is what will make things better local public control I’ll take that one person clapping at the back thank you thank you very much
But we would deliver the infrastructure we’ve done that with metr link so it’s not just like an idle boast from the stage we delivered uh the extension to uh to the Trafford Center the new Trafford par line um ahead of uh timetable on budget you know we’ve done
That with building uh Metrolink so we know we can do it and then if you look at operations here rail operations well Mery rail as I understand it are the best performing train operator in the country and that comes from the accountability that’s baked into local public control because people are on the
Spot people will be challenged if that isn’t right there’s there’s accountability there visible accountability that I’m afraid hasn’t been in Railway operations as far as I’m concerned uh particularly uh working uh with with private operators the accountability just simply hasn’t been there and it just isn’t good enough you
Know when you can have a company putting up slides talking about free money that tells you something about the culture being wrong in some of our rail operators and not in tune with what we’re trying to do at this at this level so that local public control brings accountability but it also brings
Something else it brings integration we will comp complete the first stage of the B Network in January next year that will be an integrated system tap in tap out over bike bus and tram in Greater Manchester we have a very clear Vision working with Veron Everett our transport
Commissioner to bring rail into the B Network in the second half of this decade so that commu rail system comes under local public control but the critical thing is then you can integrate it with the rest of the system and you can’t do that unless you put rail under
Local public uh control so that has got to be the argument we made the big argument to reregulate buses and we’ve done it in Greater Manchester and already B Network buses are better than what they replaced and are outperforming non-franchise Services I think the same has got to be true for the railways
Railways commuter Services Under local public control can be uh more accountable to the traveling public but also then integrated with other modes within the city region and that will uh begin to transform rail in the north of England thank you [Applause] you I’ll take your
Le the Lector and so those of you who don’t know me Nick Donovan managing director um of Northern so just a a Few we used to talk about uh about 2250 to1 in terms of um economic benefit coming out of the subsidy that Northern receives for running rail Services across the north of England um and I remind everybody every time I talk about sound Network I remind everybody every
One of our Roots is subsidized so it is a taxpayers choice effectively to invest that money to buy economic activity or support economic activity across the region um if you expand that to look at social and wider economic value we’re up around the 44450 to1 ratio at the moment
So we believe that is good value and certainly I think that Chimes into the sentiment of this conference in terms of spend of taxpayers money to support economic activity Andy mentioned um infrastructure goodness in my career so I joined rail gosh back in the mid 80s and I’ve never seen as much investment
In infrastructure in the north of England as there is happening now and we do need to acknowledge that of course we want more um but I just want to highlight some really good examples of where there’s opportunity for putting in more capacity and so on across the network now without very significant
Intervention so in May 2023 we introduced a new leads Chester service on a Sunday Sunday’s on that route now is our second busiest day of the week on the lead Chester route they are at some of our highest growing Services it shows that there is untapped demand demand out
There when we get into that put on extra services and Market them and so on notum leads notum leads need some quite modest infrastructure interventions to free up capacity on that route which sees six of our 20 years busiest trains at the moment and whenever I talk to at my team
Out there conductors and drivers that is one of our challenging routes in terms of um capacity Hull has seen some of our most successful delivery of family Journeys on some of the products that we’ve been encouraging families to travel so these different markets um are certainly out
There with opportunity I just wanted to round up very quickly on a couple of points so Andy talks about um local public control I’d like to build on that slightly and talk about briefly Clarity of control one of the things that I would observe at the moment is there has
Been a a um a watering down of the clarity of the control of uh operations in the network and that makes this job very very difficult that’s my pleasa for for today so that Clarity of control is hugely important especially across the north of England it is a hugely interdependent and interconnected
Network our own Services run out of 23 train crew depos with 16 different train types and almost every service will serve more than one uh City region across the North in terms of capacity into those main city hubs we don’t do that because it’s fun to do it that way
We do it because there’s aot long history in driving efficient utilization of resource both in terms of trains and in terms of Crews to deliver the service that way so Andy in the local public control a discussion I want to be having is around the clarity within that that
Acknowledges that hugely complex Network and make sure that those outcomes come through that Clarity of of control and lastly I’ll just say within that we’ve got to unlock some some more so we’re already unlocking some Legacy stuff in Northern ways of working terms and conditions of employment have to be
Unlocked so Sundays for us in this part of the Railway 95% of our crew are volunteers on a Sunday and unless we unlock that unless we unlock that we will not deliver uh Sunday services with a reliability that’s needed or have the ability to put in additional Services
That’s a tough discussion to come uh through the Trade union environments and we we have to front into that um over the next couple of years so that’s meant to be 2 minutes I think I overran but anyway there we are I think you did but thank you very much to you [Applause]
Dar well looks like we’re doing the leg turn um Darren Alm from tfn um just wanted to say how fabulous it is today to see so many familiar faces in this room here in Liverpool and I think we heard that maybe half of us came on the
Train today one of the really important points for us all to remember and just picking up from what Andy said earlier Liverpool Lim street is a station it’s one of the very few if not perhaps even the best performing Mainline station in the UK the level of Passenger throughput at Liverpool now is
Significantly in excess of the numbers that existed prior to CID into lockdown and the point that I’m making there is that here in the north we’re an absolutely fabulous place fabulous um region for us all to be in but we’re in a region where the trains the railway
Service it is growing it is coming back sure the level of um commuter travel in the typical morning and evening Peak has changed but we’re in a we’re in a world where the northern services are improving it’s really important that we remind ourselves of that this isn’t about managed decline this is about
Being positive and moving forward now we heard from uh May Ram earlier about the north being effectively double the size of London the way I tend to express it is that here in the north the population 15 16 million however you define it it’s more than the population
Of London and Scotland you know and we need to be you know we need to be bold and we need to be expressive on this point that you know we live in a fabulous part of the world but we are such a large part of the United Kingdom
And if the north can progress and grow and develop of course that helps all of the citizens and people that live and working the north but it’s so fundamental to the um to the performance of The Wider UK so I think that is a really important point that we need to
Keep saying and I’m sure many of you will have heard me say this before turning to the question I think one of the really key points is speaking with one voice if we speak with one voice and we heard earlier again from uh from Steve when we do speak with One
Voice then we listen to you know a good example being the U the ticket office closure issue I think that tfn as um as a as a gathering comes together extremely well and does tend to speak with one voice and and in my experience
Over the last 12 months or so we tend to take the politics out of the decision making and I think that is a really key issue that if you look around the world at where transport outcomes are being effectively delivered it’s where there’s a broad consensus around what is needed
What is needed for a particular region and then political matters been put to one side then to develop a plan as to how to get to that place if we have that plan then we can then move forward unfortunately you know recent events with ha chest 2 that was very
Regrettable in terms of effectively ripping up many of the plans that we had in the north but what we do have as we had before we had the TF n STP as you heard from Martin earlier our strategic transport plan is is uh ready to be reenders by um by the TFM board
And that sets out the outcomes that we all wish to see across the North and and and for me that gives a clear purpose and a clear timeline to achieve things be it tripling Freight or whatever it happens to be tripling Freight I should say on the rail network so that I think
Is fundamentally important but sitting alongside that it’s certainty of funding the certainty of funding is fundamental be that for five years be it for 10 years whatever the amount is once you have that certainty if you have a plan that you’re working to and you have certainty of
Funding then it allows those local decisions to be made around priorities prioritization and moving things forward and by doing that what that would do is that would mean that things could happen quicker in a more considered way it would give certainty to supply chain contractors and we would all know where
We’re heading to rather than more of a stop start that unfortunately has been a problem for infrastructure across the UK for the last 30 or 40 years so for me a plan agreed budgets and being confident about ourselves and the one final point I will make on this is that as we came
In today into Liverpool which is a fabulous City there are so many super examples of infrastructure largely built by the victorians um during that time period they didn’t settle for building infrastructure to some sort of minimum criteria to some minimum viable product we have to look to move away from that
And of course we need value for money but we need to you know recognize that the plans that we’re developing now you know they need to be the right plans not for the next 10 years not for the next political cycle but for the next 20 30
50 years you know so they are the key factors for me in terms of answering the question thank you Anna Jan can I invite you I was told we weren’t going to use the Elon so I’m going to try and see if this just works from here because um I’m feeling a
Little under the weather this morning so I’m gonna stay put um I’ll keep this short because I think uh we’re we’re wanting to get into the discussion but I think for me um trans forming rail anywhere but particularly in the north that I’m so proud of being from and
Being part of the rail network in the north is that we need to deliver deliver on our promises and that goes all the way from the timetable ultimately is our promise we we should deliver it every day the timetable that we’ve set out to but in the longer term what are we
Trying to deliver so which timetable are we aiming for be it NPR hs2 whatever we’re calling it in the long term and then stick to the course and then that gives us the second thing I think we need to focus on on is is being confident so if we can be confident and
Give others confidence in what we do in rail of the north then people will want to use our product people will want to invest in us and invest more than they already are doing and and Nick mentioned you know there’s there’s more going on than ever in terms of investment but of
Course we need more but delivering on it means being confident and I’m I’m fortunate enough to travel a lot on the railways around the country in fact I think I’ve spent about I toted up something like 120 hours on trains in the last fortnite or so all over the
Network including some places that I hadn’t been to since the very start of my career um including redin station I’ll mention somewhere completely off Network where it was huge and some of the ways that they delivered that transformational station enhancement project were really different and quite
Frightening at the time some of the ways of collaborating between Network Rail and The Operators were really different and people were terrified about how it was delivered but they stuck to the course they spent a lot of money money scary amounts of money at the time and
They delivered it and I did not recognize the place when I walked in there last week that’s the kind of transformation we need but we need to stick to the course and be confident in our abilities thank you that was definitely two minutes so well done okay I’m going to take your lead
And stay my seat um I’m gonna open this up to the floor now can I just ask we’ve got about just over 20 minutes for questions can I just ask that you keep your questions brief you state your name and also where you’re from um thank you very
Much Tony do you want to start here at the front thank you interesting right thank you uh Adrian Swift Mery side Civic Society shortly after this meeting I’ll be uh going over the road where I’ve arranged this evening a session with the combined Authority about the spatial development
Strategy and it will be interesting to see whether how that is being integrated with the local transport plan and it’s the issue of integration I want to raise with Andy Berner you’ve talked about integration basically technology kit infrastructure but there’s something you’ve missed out and that is integration with land use and town
Planning and you can talk endlessly about Rail and public transport but people will not use it unless there are certain prerequisites in terms of how we develop our towns and City indeed our rural areas one thing is we do need very strong Town centers and City centers that are economic drivers there’s the
Issue of density of development there’s the accessibility to transport hubs and it’s that integration between town planning and public transport planning otherwise it will not work May Burnham do you want to pick that up well I just would agree 100% um but we’ve done that integration
Um I would have if I had longer I would have got on to that because we are the first I think to do a spatial plan uh we didn’t get all 10 of our authorities to agree to it but nine have stuck the course and that plan is likely to be
Adopted in the next couple of months now so we’ve we’ve done it but it was always done with transport for greater Manchester uh with the 2040 strategy for infrastructure around it so we have a very big strategic site in the north of Greater Manchester will come forward as
A result of that plan called atam Valley a a site that is one of the UK’s uh in fact you could say the biggest strategic site in the in the UK for high value employment it it will have uh connectivity to Metrolink that’s our that’s our plan if you look at it um
From a a kind of less sort of big picture point of view I would I would encourage anybody to look at Stockport right now and what’s happening there where we’ve had a maral Development Corporation the local Authority working with the combined Authority that new interchange that we’re building in Stockport will will be
Open next month um and that is that is in many ways at the heart of a new vision for Stockport which is seeing 3,500 homes built uh around it this is um public transport driving regeneration and building homes for public transport not building homes for the car uh so I
Think you can see that thing thinking coming through in Greater Manchester actually but it reinforces my points about local public control how can you make transport fit with the place and join all the dots if if someone else is making the decisions in a very different
Way it just won’t work will it you won’t get that uh coherence that you’re calling for uh so I think we would say we are doing what you’re saying uh and this is a much better way to to to work we’ve got to think about what does
Transport enable I have to say this the department for transport View at times is we’re just building transport and we don’t really see what we don’t we’re just building it for the lowest cost we can get away with in the north and we’re don’t really care about well no I’m
Sorry that that isn’t that isn’t good enough and one last point you mentioned accessibility of of um transport interchanges Darren will back me up on this as chair of the rail North committee I have said the rail industry needs to put a much much bigger focus on disability access it is frankly disgrace
Ful that half of the Rail stations in the north of England don’t have step-free access therefore are inaccessible to a number of our residents simple thing for disabled people simple changes to our stations could trans well it’s not just transform the rail now you will even let them use
The rail the rail network and I you know working with Patrick as chair of tfn and uh colleagues you know the the industry needs to focus on things like that need to become a first order issue not the last on the agenda issue and you know this this question of accessibility to
The system needs to become a much much higher priority than I’ve seen it been in the in the eight years that I’ve done this job thank you may bernham let’s move on to um to another question um down here if that’s okay Nick Patrick MC glin if if I could
Just ask a very quick question uh so give opportunity I I hly endorse what Anna said about reading station I simple fact is that was trans transformational for the whole of the West country not just reading uh as far as what it actually did uh and sometimes that’s not
Realized that a transport infrastructure can have wide ranging impacts even outside the area but Nick you talked about um Clarity of control uh I’d be quite interested to know a bit more about what you meant as far as Clarity of control is concerned particularly now that both trans penine
And Northern are operated by the uh operator of Last Resort and were you thinking of uh the roles that those two operations have uh so I I it was a nice phrase but I’d like to just know a bit more of the detail so I think so the
First thing I’d say is within the operating in the public sector as I do um has been tremendously liberating actually in terms of the ultimate shareholder being the same shareholder whichever way um we go so in terms of the ambition for Rail and some of that stuff that we’ve wanted to do
Accessibility by way of example and is one of our six pillars of of activity I think the the point I I would make is that there are there are some quite tactical decisions that take um a lot of decision making to get through to realize what an outcome will be um and
By way of example I use some of the service design um uh considerations write down to quite detailed time PL tabling decisions which my background would say would have been more Nimble in the ability for The Operators to make those decisions in the past um so I
Think some of the work that we do with tfn um with um the the Mayors and hearing those um uh expectations for improved services and so on are all hugely um encouraging um but the the ability to deliver with agility in the moment I find constrained at the moment I’ll be
Quite honest in SE SE of the room and I think in the in the way we think around how how the The Guiding mind for rail or The Guiding mind for the North or whatever plays out in that um giving agility to those who are operating the
Railway is something that I would make a plea for um in this room um and it’s a it’s a question actually around role of the operator there’s a question around role of the operators whether it’s a delivered to a very spe detailed specification for delivery or through to
Some sort of a um an enabling partner a trusted partner which is a space that we have aimed to work in with with Andy and colleagues over recent years the only slight push back from my point of view n would be you know agility yes I get that
But sometimes the railway in my experience can do things to suit itself that doesn’t actually work for people and places so how would we guard against that it’s got to be a mix of more local public control and more clarity and Agility for you isn’t it there there
Some there’s a point of balance there isn’t there you can find but it’s got to be a bit of both there is so the conversations I enjoy having is about outcomes outcomes for people for place for Journeys and so on and then the operational detail of the delivery of of
The the detail of the network can can play out in that in that agile place so I think the outcomes discussions are the ones that I found find most rewarding in terms of um of the policy policy outcomes people in place Darren we often have those conversations with TFM for the the
Broader North as well yeah indeed what I would just say on on that Nick is I think um we need to shine a light on some of these things you know and um Andy you know you through rail North committee got to shine a light on station accessibility and safety and
Then when we start looking at that and that Revelation that half of the stations are not accessible you saying well that’s that’s that’s terrible and you then look at well what’s the timeline to actually make them accessible and you’re looking at 50 60 maybe longer years well that Poss can’t
Possibly be right so we then have to then look at well how do we work together to overcome some of these things and you know my sense is that um the train operators Northern TPT others um want to do that but they need that certainty of funding and prioritization
And I think that’s that’s the elephant in the room that if you’ve no money to do some of these things we need to shine a light on that and say this is a big problem and there’s another big problem there’s no funding to resolve it and Jan
Can I just bring you in what’s your take on Clarity of control but I think the outcomes is the uh the important bit for me so so I’ve I’ve worked for um privately owned operators I’ve worked for Network rail who let’s not forget have been publicly uh run for for many
Years so for me it’s about outcomes and let’s not kid ourselves it’s not about who owns them or whether it’s National or whether it’s local or these debates that we can get into and often get distracted by it’s about what are we trying to achieve what’s the best way
Forward to achieve it and not get distracted by Railway for Railway sake or ownership debates for ownership’s sake it’s about working together putting the best people on the job to get the job done for the travel in public and for for me and I can say that from my
Position because I have no dog in the fight it’s the most important thing for me is just to get it right disagree on it on Jame because the difference in working with Nick and Chris Jackson has just been night and day honestly when you’ve got alignment and not a different
Serving a different objective which sometimes felt that the operators were doing it it does matter in my view does but it’s the same people they’re the same people who were there before working for a private operator so all I’m saying is don’t let’s get too distracted by it because the people want
To do the right thing with the right objectives and the right incentives and the right motivation to do it which sometimes is about who call you look at those slides that have anti put up really no I’m I’m serious you got we got to be honest about this because we can’t
Just go around these debates forever what’s the right way to run the railway can that possibly be the right culture that that you put slides up that kind of say no free money you know we can laugh at the government you know it’s just almost laughing at the public it you got
That cannot continue I agree the behaviors are terrible the contract starts as the first place with the problem because they’re observing what’s in the contract and that’s wrong we need to get all of it right including the behaviors so I don’t agree with the behaviors but I don’t agree with how the
Contract structured either at the moment so I think there’s improvements on both sides thank you okay let’s look at that side of the room if that’s okay right in the back um Daniela than councel Neil Hugh Westman furnace Council there’s a question for another question for Nick so if if the if the rail Revival in terms of Northern certainly is the 60 to 70% of Journeys now relate to Leisure and taking into account the fact that the area I
Represent or part of which I represent late district and wider Cumbria attracts up to 20 million visitors a year why is it that the northern operations in the Cumbre and have to be fair those of one or two other operators as well are lamentably below the standard that not
Only the locals could expect but the millions of visitors who are coming in I accept that the train crew shortage is everybody we all know we won’t say it should have been addressed years into the past but looking at the present operating principles why is this so much
Short running why on days when The Operators surely know the trains will be full mostly visitors are are two coach uh three coach trains uh used um when on lines such as the settle car line where the gap between services to really popular stations such as D and Gaz and
So on can be three hours or four hours or so on now obviously I represent local people I want their needs to be met but actually um if tourism is so important and it is then we have to think of our visitors and the huge boost to the economy that tourism brings especially
In the late District second most popular tourist are of the country so can can I get I’d like any panel members but particularly Nick to respond to that please can you pick that up please I’ll do it very quick so look we could have a discussion around lots of um local
Issues across the network I’m actually visiting um windir later this week so um I’ll be up there um to see the team up there I’m going to make two very quick points the first point is around the design of the network in terms of capacity and that’s about choices around
Investments in infrastructure Fleet and the number of trains that are run so the cost of running those trains so they are choices um that are made and I you know I’m somewhat constrained by budget within uh the delivery of the capacity in the design of the of the the networks
That’s the first point and some of the points that you rais there as there are Elsewhere on the network clearly there are constraints that you I would love to run more uh longer faster and all the rest of it and the other the other point
Is the delivery on the day point which I think you brought out there and you mentioned um train crew I don’t use the word shortages because actually as nor them we we are better resourced than any of the other operators in terms of number of train crew and I know that
Because that’s through a to an industry Benchmark in terms of resource the challenge we have is the availability of those crew um partly being affected by short-term sickness which we’re addressing at the moment um and partly through a skills point which we’re also addressing so that’s training on on root
And traction knowledge and so on which we are addressing um furiously and that those issues are more acute actually in the furnace um region that they are on the rest of the network so acutely aware of some of those day-to-day delivery challenges that you refer to there thank
You question gentlemen at the back there if that’s okay yeah just Mo directed for Andy Burnham can I just ask that you state your name please I’m Matthew benney I’m a guard on on the trains in in the Birmingham area it’s just a few questions for Andy burn well
Observational points as well regarding HS to the northern power so I heard you’ve been in conversation with our May Andy Street about the hs2 Route 2 Manchester is that in case of looking something fresh or trying to stop the government selling off the land which I think they should you know they should
Be they should go to legislation they should be prevented from selling it off and uh do you still pushing for the underground station at Manchester which I think you should be and what what are you pushing for with regards to a line between Liverpool and Manchester is it
The FID F route or completely fresh fresh line so I pick up that question thanks for asking keep it brief and then we can get a few more I will definitely try um so Andy Street and I met the transport secretary last week to discuss this very
Issue uh it was a constructive meeting um the point we made is if we’re talking about transforming rail in the north there’s a very big Birmingham Manchester sized hole in that plan if we’re not careful given the announcements that were made last year the West Coast
Mainland I think we’d all accept is at capacity um if you have H two trains coming to Birmingham then joining the West Coast Mainland at Hano I mean you will know working that system it just won’t work will it it’s not going to be
A a plan and in fact I think we’ve had admission that there will be shorter trains and fewer seats going lower speeds you know this is not the transformation we were promised a decade a decade ago so there has to be a solution Andy and I are meeting in
Birmingham on Wednesday with the private sector partners that we’ve uh brought together led by S David hiin and Arup um there is some interesting thinking developing and it does link to the second part of your question because actually all were talking we’ve got to be really people will talk about
Birmingham Manchester actually what we’re talking about is Hana to highe because if we’re confirming to the department that we’re happy to stick with the old hs2 routing and infrastructure to support Northern Powerhouse rail the Gap is that chunk isn’t it that that’s the that’s the problem we need to fix and we’re looking
At you know could that be upgrading West Coast mainland could it be some bypasses on the west coast Mainline or does it need a new line and that’s the type of work that the um the private sector working group have got under way they said to us in the meeting last week that
Tgv has been extend extended in France by a purely P private sector approach so I’m I’m not against that because I think something has to be done to uh to to fix the problem but you know at least the government now are kind of you know they’re saying that they are open-minded
About the process that we’ve we’ve set up so there is there is some positivity when it comes to Northern Powerhouse rail I’m with Steve you know he should never accept that fiddle’s ferry route that was a complete cut price option it would close Lim Street for two years I
Mean what mayor of any City could accept their kind of City being shut down in that way it was a classic treasury Penny pinch save some money we need the most ambitious version of Northern Powerhouse rail in my view which should be um a new station here in Liverpool um Warrington
Have got a big Planet Banky to to uh um regenerate that it should come via Manchester Airport and absolutely 100% it should be underground at Picadilly and when people then say well how do you pay for all of that we say open your mind to things like land value capture
If the railway increases the value of the land around it because what it enables there’s nothing wrong with capturing some of that uh that uplift to pay for the infrastructure over longer period of time so that that’s an update I mean I trying to be be brief because
It’s complicated issue but um you out of the ashes of last year we’ve started to piece something back together but that is a massive let’s call it a hands a to highly size hole in the plan for railing the north because and actually transporting the north the m6 is full
Between Birmingham and the Northwest the West Coast Mainline is full if nothing is done to both of those two things you’re just going to end up with transport headaches left right and Center aren’t you in the rest of this Century there has to be a solution thank you um we have one minute
Left so um Anna Jane do you wanna do you want to come in on on that and your thoughts about the bombshell from last year I suggest we get another question I wasn’t I wasn’t trying to come in no no I I I don’t think we have time for
Another questions so yes I agreed the West Coast mainland’s full um I agreed the bombshell was a ridiculous announcement um I agree we should go big or go home go for the biggest plans I live in Liverpool and I’d like to see everything everything that Steve talked about earlier happened for Liverpool and
And the same for Manchester too I strongly believe we should have started at the North End I’m on the record of saying that many times in many places it’s a shame we didn’t and Daron you talked about a huge hole last last week how you feeling now
About about the future it’s it’s very hard to disagree with anything that Andy’s just said there really I think the one point I would add in to all of this is that people often talk about costs going up and yes they do the costs do go up infrastructure schemes um but
That shouldn’t be a reason not to do them because as costs go up benefits go up or lost benefits go up if those schemes aren’t implemented so we can’t accept that schemes costing more is a reason not to do them you know and I think that’s you know we have to be
Coste efficient and we have to be sensible but I go back to the point I made earlier that we need to be bold and look at both sides of the equation what are the costs but what are the benefits what are the benefits to society to the
Economics to all the citizens that live here that that’s that for me is looking at all all aspects of these decisions thank you and Nick final word uh final word for me so keep the ambition um we mustn’t lose passengers trust um I’ve seen David cbon somewhere here probably
Put your hand up um so anyway I’m you know big vote for the passenger in all of this um we mustn’t lose people’s trust in the product today some of it not withstanding the comments on furnace and so on is a really good product and
We mustn’t let a a story get out there that takes away people’s trust to come and use it because that’s the life blood for for uh for the need for the future thank you so much we could have um we could have carried on for quite a
Long time I think and I can only apologize for those um in the room who didn’t get a chance to to an um ask their questions um just like to say big thank you to to May Burnham to to Anna Jane to Darren and to Nick for for being
With us here today um it is lunchtime you’ll be glad to know you go in that direction or that direction um there will be a podcast recording in this room so anyone who um who wants to listen to that can go and get their lunch and
Bring it back in um thank you so much um and yeah show our appreciation