Northern Powerhouse Rail needs Government to work with local authorities to ensure widespread benefits
The success of Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) depends on central government and local and regional authorities working together.
The arguments in favour of NPR are clear, the region has been long starved of much needed rail investment.
The Government’s announcement earlier this year to connect both sides of the Pennines in a bid to unleash the North’s potential are to be welcomed.
But the question now is how the proposals are going to be effectively delivered and in a timely manner.
Delays caused by poor communication will only erode trust in yet another public infrastructure project. The region is wary given previous betrayals that have inevitably followed delays.
The National Audit Office’s (NAO) recent report is reassuring in that it mentions that the Department for Transport (DfT) has identified important lessons from HS2 and other major rail programmes. And that it has also taken steps to manage how NPR fits with other rail upgrade programmes in the north of England.
However, it warns that the Government has more work to do to show how it plans to deliver the wider economic benefits for the North enabled by NPR.
Getting NPR right is not only an economic imperative but also a political imperative. Left behind communities need to feel the economic benefits of NPR.
NPR has always been about much more than just more or faster trains across the North. It is about unleashing the North’s latent potential by unlocking opportunities for everyone. The more mobile a population is the greater the social mobility it enjoys.