Life moves fast when you’re Rishi Sunak. On Tuesday, he insisted he was not going to be bounced into making a quick decision on HS2. Within 24 hours he was standing up at Conservative party conference heralding a new transport network.
Not only did he scrap HS2 north of Birmingham, dismissing it as “the ultimate example of the old consensus”, but he had somehow found time to sign off a 40-page prospectus for Network North. Subtitle: Transforming British Transport.
Though no one could possibly believe the document was actually drawn up during a conference all-nighter, it did bear all the hallmarks of something rustled up in a hurry. And some of the things Sunak has said since have illustrated a significant lack of understanding of the realities of transport in the north of England and/or a forgetfulness around what he or his predecessors had already announced.
Here are 10 dodgy bits in and around the Network North announcement:
1 – At first glance, the front-page map of the prospectus seems to relocate Manchester to Preston.
2 – It says new funding to Greater Manchester could mean the Metrolink tram network being extended to Manchester airport. The airport link opened in 2014.
3 – Labour analysis of Sunak’s promises found 85% had already been promised or committed to during the Conservatives’ 13-year reign.
4 – In a promotional video to promote Network North, Sunak said he would quadruple the number of trains between Sheffield and Leeds. As the travel journalist Simon Calder pointed out, there are already five an hour each way, and so Sunak appeared to be promising 20 trains an hour – one every three minutes – which would essentially turn the route into a tube line. Great news for God’s own county! Alas, it seems the prime minister failed to read the small print of Network North, which promised to increase the number of fast trains between these two Yorkshire cities to three or four an hour.
5 – After Sunak’s speech on Wednesday, the government issued a list of projects to which it was committed. One of these read: “The Leamside line, closed in 1964, will also be reopened.” Come Thursday morning, the promise to reinstate the 21-mile route in County Durham had mysteriously disappeared from the Network North prospectus. The transport minister Richard Holden told the local democracy reporting service the government was now only “committed to looking into it”.
6 – Sunak has a very elastic definition of the “north”, with Network North promising to improve rail connections to Plymouth, which is 250 miles from Crewe – the Cheshire town that many people see as the gateway to the north of England.
7 – Speaking of Crewe, it went from being a key hub on HS2 to being probably the biggest loser of the cancellation debacle. This once great railway town is mentioned only in passing in Network North, when there is talk of £1bn investment in the north Wales main line, which starts in Crewe.
8 – There is little in Network North about creating new capacity on the chockablock west coast main line north of Birmingham, particularly the Castlefield corridor into Manchester, which is classed by Network Rail as “officially congested”. According to Craig Browne, the deputy leader of Cheshire East council, “the rail journey from Crewe to Manchester on the west coast main line is mostly two tracks [one in each direction], which means you can only go at the speed of the slowest train.” HS2 was supposed to take the fastest intercity services off the main line, freeing up space for far more local stopping services.
9 – Bristol – which is north of Devon and Cornwall and not a lot else in England – also had its opportunities snatched away with a quick swipe of the delete key. On Wednesday, government documents promised “£100m for a mass transit system for Bristol to revolutionise travel in and around Bristol”. On Thursday, that pledge had vanished. It appeared to have been replaced with a broader pledge to give the West of England combined authority £100m, which it could spend on various things in their region.
10 – Network North committed to upgrading the A259 from Bognor Regis to that well-known northern city of Southampton, but on Thursday ministers admitted they actually meant Littlehampton, 45 miles away.
