Strategy raises questions over commitment to high speed rail plan

The Government has previously expressed support for the project, known as Northern Powerhouse Rail, but its new transport strategy says ministers are “considering” the idea.

Coun Keith Wakefield, chairman of West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s transport committee, said: “With stops in York, Leeds and Bradford and across the north, Northern Powerhouse is not a regional priority but a national one that this Government must support unequivocally. I would, therefore call on [Transport Secretary] Chris Grayling to make the same commitments to Northern Powerhouse Rail he did just a few weeks ago in Halifax when he was on the election campaign trail.”

The Government strategy includes a new ‘rebalancing’ test to ensure any new projects contribute to making the economy less dependent on the South-East.

Coun Wakefield said that if the Government was serious about rebalancing the economy it “needs to redress the legacy of underinvestment that has seen transport spending in London six times that per head as in our region, which means real increases in funding and not just spreading existing investment more thinly.”

Transport for the North, the government body responsible for major schemes in the North of England, is expected to publish more detailed proposals for NPR later this year.