Better rail connectivity will allow Sheffield and Leeds to function more like a single economy - Tom Hunt & James Lewis
We are proud to lead the two largest cities in Yorkshire. Sheffield and Leeds are home to 1.4 million people and contribute nearly £50bn to UK plc. But our great, global and growing cities are connected by just one fast train an hour, running on Victorian infrastructure.
We are also home to internationally-competitive businesses with expertise in sectors that are central to the UK’s industrial strategy and growing our economy. In Leeds the financial, digital and data sectors are thriving, with GoCardless, Vilja Solutions and Netcompany among the many organisations recently moving into the city, bolstering our own Northern Square Mile.
Sheffield’s strengths are in advanced manufacturing, clean energy, culture and creativity, with Warp Films winning eight Emmy Awards for their Netflix series Adolescence, and the historic Forgemasters steelworks due to build a new plant which will create 900 jobs and safeguard the key role it plays in the nation’s defence infrastructure.
And with 11 universities, we are at the forefront of research and innovation supporting knowledge intensive industries like fintech and healthtech.
Yet we are doing this with poor rail connectivity between us. Infrequent and unreliable services that take too long. The 29 miles between Leeds and Sheffield are served by only one ‘fast’ train per hour which takes 42 minutes, compared to four fast trains an hour between Liverpool and Manchester. This is alongside stopping services which take longer.
As a result, 90 per cent of daily journeys between Sheffield and Leeds are made by car along the M1 motorway – amounting to more than 100,000 trips each day.
To collaborate, people need to be able to connect easily. Every delay, every missed connection, every overcrowded train is a missed opportunity for new jobs and growth. It holds our cities back.
Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) can change this. Improving rail connectivity between the great cities of the North is a golden opportunity to drive growth in not just Sheffield and Leeds but across Yorkshire and the UK too. Delivering more fast trains will allow our cities to function more like a single economy. Better connections mean better knowledge transfer between industry and academic institutions, stronger and wider labour markets, enabling us to compete globally.
As city leaders, alongside the Mayors of West and South Yorkshire, we are calling for Northern Powerhouse Rail investment to provide four fast trains an hour between Sheffield and Leeds — cutting journey times, growing reliability and capacity.
Better rail services will also offer clear benefits to surrounding towns, villages and communities, bringing people within easier reach of jobs and opportunities, and enabling delivery of more new homes including greater affordable housing.
To deliver this we need to upgrade our stations too. At Sheffield Midland, this means adding rail capacity by expanding our tram-train network to free up capacity on the main line. In Leeds, this is about the station becoming a hub for effective onward travel into the city centre, including ensuring it is fit for purpose when the tram system arrives.
Investment in our stations is not only critical to meet the forecasted growth in demand for rail travel, but also to unlock opportunities to regenerate key brownfield land around our stations and develop more integrated transport networks connecting trams and trains. We are both moving forward with ambitious tram and train expansion plans which are an interconnected part of realising the gains that NPR can bring. Heavy and light rail are two sides of the same coin.
For too long, Yorkshire and the North have been held back by creaking infrastructure. We know that the Government shares our ambition for better transport connectivity across the North to drive UK growth. The upcoming Northern Powerhouse announcement is a key moment to invest in better Sheffield-Leeds connectivity and make a downpayment on the future productivity growth it will bring.
The prize is significant. New research by Metro Dynamics shows what’s possible. Delivering Northern Powerhouse Rail in full to connect the great cities of the North can lead to a 57 per cent increase in Sheffield’s labour-market depth and 23 per cent in Leeds. More jobs, better jobs and greater opportunities for the people who live in our regions.
A North firing on all cylinders could add £232bn to UK GVA by 2040, equivalent to £3,900 per person.
Across West and South Yorkshire, politicians and businesses stand together in calling for better connections between Sheffield and Leeds. Next week we will join Tracy Brabin and Oliver Coppard at an event in Westminster to champion our case for investment in rail connectivity.
Tom Hunt is the leader of Sheffield City Council. James Lewis is the leader of Leeds City Council.