Liz Truss says Northern Powerhouse Rail services will stop at new Bradford station

Boris Johnson’s Government sparked a backlash in November when it announced the rail network would be scaled back and Bradford would be cut from the route.

However, his successor appears to have reverted back to Transport for the North’s original plans for a £43bn network, which include high-speed lines running between Liverpool to Leeds, via Manchester and Bradford, and a series of line upgrades stretching across the North.

Speaking to ITV yesterday, Ms Truss said Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) services “will stop at Bradford” and more detailed plans for the network will be announced “in due course”.

Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, leader of Bradford Council, described the announcement as “a positive step forward”.

“We will hold her government to account to deliver on the Bradford stop and Northern Powerhouse Rail in full and we won’t let up until spades are in the ground and NPR is delivered,” she said.

“We have been making the strong case for NPR for several years to successive Prime Ministers. Northern leaders have been united in the call for a new Bradford city centre stop on NPR.”

She added: “A new Bradford city centre station on NPR will bring more than £167bn of annual economic output within a 35-minute journey of the city, it will create 27,000 new jobs, unlock a regeneration site three times the size of Canary Wharf and open up access to a labour market of 6.7 million people."

It comes after NPR was named as an “accelerated project” when the Government published its Growth Plan earlier this month.

According to the document, it is one of 138 projects “which will be accelerated as fast as possible” and construction will begin on “the vast majority” of those projects by the end of 2023.

Ms Truss appears to have scrapped the scaled back plans for NPR, announced as part of the Integrated Rail Plan, to spend £17.2bn on building one 40-mile line between Warrington and Marsden.

But she has refused to revert back to the original plans for HS2 and ensure the line reaches Leeds.

It comes as the Railway Industry Association is calling on the Government to provide more certainty on major rail projects.

The trade group said the Government must finalise proposals for HS2, East West Rail and NPR, as ongoing uncertainty “damages confidence and jeopardises investment”.

Chief Executive Darren Caplan said: “Rail’s potential to deliver economic growth will be hampered by uncertainty and ambiguity if we do not get confirmation of the Government’s plans.

“As the new Transport Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan prepares to address the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, we urge her and her colleagues in Government to provide the clarity the railway industry needs.”