Rail services worse after Northern Powerhouse plan - mayor

Regional mayors have said the Northern Powerhouse project had failed to improve rail services

Rail services in northern England have become poorer in the 10 years since the Northern Powerhouse was promised, Greater Manchester's mayor has said.

Andy Burnham made the comments at a Transport for the North conference in Liverpool.

He said "barely any" of the changes outlined in 2014 by former chancellor George Osborne to improve everyday services had been delivered.

Rail minister Huw Merriman said there had been investment in the network.

He told regional leaders that improvements were being done on the Transpennine route and they needed to "demonstrate the positives".

'Radical change'

The so-called Northern Powerhouse project was proposed by Mr Osborne to end the UK's economic reliance on London by investing in northern England, including plans for HS2.

Speaking at the conference on Monday, Mr Burnham said new analysis from of public transport in Manchester had shown that rail services were poorer than in 2016.

"It's ten years this year since George Osborne came to Manchester and promised a Northern Powerhouse," he said.

"That was going to mean HS2, HS3, as it was then called, now Northern Powerhouse Rail - better everyday services on the existing network."

Lord Patrick McLoughlin, former Conservative transport secretary and chairman of Transport for the North, said there had been improvement but it was "for others to decide" whether there had been enough.

In October last year, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak controversially cancelled the plan to extend HS2 between the West Midlands and Manchester amid spiralling costs.

Mr Merriman said the decision was a "radical change" in the government's approach to transport.

"It is important to me that every penny of HS2 savings from the North is spent well and makes a difference to transport in the North, benefiting more people in more places, more quickly than was ever conceivable under the HS2 projects," he added.

Liverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram told the conference he had written to the transport minister to seek a guarantee that any future northern rail network would deliver "the maximum possible benefits for the whole city region".