Andy Burnham pledges to resurrect HS2 northern leg

Andy Burnham will try and bring back the northern leg of HS2 if he becomes Prime Minister, using land-value capture funding that unlocked transport projects in London.

The Greater Manchester mayor hopes to win Thursday’s Makerfield by-election and could then launch a campaign to replace Sir Keir Starmer in No10 Downing Street.

Reports have suggested Mr Burnham could initiate a leadership challenge “within hours” of any potential by-election win, with Sir Keir suffering another blow with the resignation of Defence Secretary John Healey.

In an interview with I News, Mr Burnham indicated he would try and resurrect the HS2 leg from Birmingham to Manchester.

HS2 was originally planned to run to Manchester and Leeds to solve capacity problems for rail in the North, but the project was severely curtailed by the Conservatives in power because of spiralling costs.

In 2021 Boris Johnson scrapped the Leeds leg and in 2023 Rishi Sunak axed the Manchester segment. At the time Mr Burnham described it as a “betrayal of the North”.

It would still be possible to build the Manchester leg, as the Government has retained the land, however the route of the Leeds leg has since been sold.

“I am absolutely clear, I’ve seen it myself in terms of expansion of our travel system,” Mr Burnham said on the by-election campaign.

“If you put that infrastructure in, it lays the foundations for higher growth… The lack of high-quality rail infrastructure in the north of England holds back its growth potential.”

At the time Mr Sunak cancelled the Manchester leg, it was due to cost £36bn, however that will have increased since 2023.

Last month, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander revealed that the route from Birmingham to London Euston could cost more than £100bn and may not be finished until 2043.

Mr Burnham believes that the Manchester leg could be paid for using land value capture, which is when money is raised by borrowing against the projected increase in value that comes from land next to a major transport hub.

This was used to fund the Northern line expansion to Battersea Power Station in London, which he describes this as a “cleverer way of funding this”.

“If you go back, I put the funding package together for Crossrail and it was actually a package that did have contributions from business and residents,” he said.

“You don’t take all the windfall off the landholder, but you share the proceeds of that windfall, and the increase in land values created by the infrastructure is captured to pay back the cost of the infrastructure.

“So why shouldn’t we fund infrastructure in this country in that way?”

Mr Burnham’s comments come as Sir Keir warned him against a rapid leadership challenge.

“I don’t think we should have a challenge, because I think it’ll throw the country into chaos,” he told ITV’s This Morning.

“If there is a challenge, I will fight. I’m not going to walk away from this.

“We won a landslide victory just two years ago with a clear mandate to change the country, that’s a five-year mandate.”