Speaking at the Transport for the North annual conference today, Transport Minister Andrew Stephenson said the pandemic had “led to a huge dent on the region's economy”.

And he said that although “we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel”, he added: “Covid reminded us of how important it is that we generate jobs and economic growth in the places that need the most, and therefore it's only strengthened the Government's resolve to power up the economy and speed up the delivery of the Northern Powerhouse.”

While he was also concerned that progress made in recent years had been set back by the pandemic.

He said: "We've seen some real challenges for local businesses that will take many months, if not years, to actually recover."

But Greater Manchester metro mayor Andy Burnham warned: “Let's not repeat the mistakes of the past where we built everything on the surface, we built it maybe too cheaply. The North needs long term investment that will build the economy here for the rest of this century.”

And he said that once the big ticket items such as HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail the focus needed to shift to transport within city regions.

This was echoed by Sarah Longlands, Director of the IPPR North think tank, who said: “It isn't just about the connections between cities - important though they are - it's also about the connections between towns and rural areas as well.”

She added: “And by not investing, by signalling that you don't want to put the money into particular routes or networks, that actually may have the effect of making inequalities that we know are pretty serious in the Norths worse, because many people will still need to travel, even in the midst of the pandemic, and many people will still continue to need to travel in the future.”

And she said: “I think that by failing to invest that may actually risk levelling down on people's opportunities for the future.”

Recovering from the pandemic meant that investing in the North had become even more important, Transport for the North chairman John Cridland said.

He said: “For me the Northern Powerhouse is about giving northerners better opportunities to achieve their ambitions, that's a tough gig in a terrible year like 2020.

“But from an economic point of view, and TfN’s point of view, it still comes back to better higher paying jobs, and better connectivity is one of the means of helping northerners achieve those ambitions and close that £5,000 a year gap that northerners face compared to the incomes of the rest of the country.”

Transport for key to that he added, and he said: “For me, 2021 will be a year of vital decisions for the Northern Powerhouse ambition.”

Mr Burnham added: “What I would say to the Government is let's make levelling up now really mean something to people on the ground, let's get the delivery happening in the space of a small number of years rather than just promising things that are 10 or 20 or 30 years away.”

Northern businesses may takes years to recover from coronavirus, transport minister warns