This Grant Shapps plan for North is fast-track to more rail muddle – Tony Plumbe

The rest of the TransPennine 
upgrade, whatever that might 
be, is to be ditched into the initial planning stage of a so-called Integrated Rail Plan supposed to be being conceived by the National Infrastructure Commission under the thumb of the Treasury, and so compete with other schemes from Birmingham to Newcastle, Peterborough to Carlisle.

The upshot of this penny pinching and myopia will be a TransPennine Route that is not fully electrified for years, journey times longer than they need to be, train operating and overall eventual scheme costs higher than they would otherwise be, and the environmental benefits of full electrification lost.

This is yet another example of the Department for Transport selling the North short. Freight trains badly need full electrification to get up the Pennine inclines: one freight train movement can take 76 heavy goods vehicles off the M62, but they will still be diesel hauled and so have to dally around awaiting track paths with this announcement. So much for fast tracking the North’s economy! Further, no additional local train services are accommodated by the announced proposals.

Of course, the announcement was made before talking to the people in the North. Not surprising, because Shapps also announced a Northern Transport Acceleration Council to implement the scheme. With a membership of local leaders much the same as the up and running Transport for the North Board except that a ‘Transport Secretary’ would be its Chair. This has chicanery written all over it.

Transport for the North has been 
left in limbo with no investment 
monies, resources and powers yet 
has brought the North together, developed a Transport Plan, and has
an ex-CBI and distinguished chairman
in Sir John Cridland, arguably far 
more able than any Transport 
Minister.

So, we are to have the Department of Transport, a Northern Transport Acceleration Council, Transport 
for the North, Highways England, the future Mayoral West Yorkshire 
Combined Authority and its five parallels in the North, a multitude of local authorities, and Network Rail all responsible for bits and bobs of the transport infrastructure in the North, 
not to mention all the transport operators.

What a cack-handed and ridiculous arrangement, and such a prescription
for muddle and passing the buck! It is also a naked centralisation of powers when the propagated rhetoric is decentralisation of resources, responsibilities, decision-making, and accountability.

If Grant Shapps thinks the Transport for the North is a ‘talking shop’, 
despite the Department for Transport refusing to allow it to engage in any discussions of the TransPennine Route Upgrade and it having a statutory obligation to advise central Government, then he should announce its closure 
and take the ensuing flack and 
distrust.

Instead, all is left in a muddle with another new body imposed on the North by this intervention. Mr Shapps, the North’s infrastructure is in a shambles because you have no overall nor coherent strategy.

In this announcement, the majority and difficult parts of what is required on the TransPennine Route are shunted into the ‘to be considered in the future’ backyard, and maybe buffers. The North will not be duped by this totally inadequate approach and stuttering indecision.

The current Secretary of State 
follows a long line of mediocre and dithering Transport Ministers since 
2012, namely Sir Patrick McLoughlin 
and Chris Grayling: is he seeking to reinforce the burden of their incompetence on the country and the North?

It is time to start investing with commitment in the railways of the North without embroiling them in further unnecessary bureaucratic bodies and delays.

Tony Plumbe is chair of the Action for Yorkshire Transport rail group.

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