Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has met the Transport Secretary Mark Harper along with West Midlands Mayor Andy Street to discuss plans to secure private finance to improve rail connectivity between Birmingham and Manchester.
The meeting focused on the stretch of rail between Handsacre and Manchester Airport after the decision to cancel HS2 north of Birmingham last year and hopef to hold Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to his promise to work with Andy Street to improve connectivity between Birmingham and Manchester
The work of the private sector group is being led by engineering firm Arup and chaired by infrastructure expert Sir David Higgins, and it is being reported that work includes re-examining the cost, capacity and economic uplift of changes to the HS2 rail route and help to identify potential funding models and solutions, which could involve some of the costs being covered by private companies.
The aim is for the first stage of the work to be completed by March, with the final report submitted to the government by the the summer.
However after the meeting the Transport Secretary Mark Harper wrote on X
“The Government’s position on cancelling HS2 Phase 2 has not changed.We are already getting on with delivering our Network North plan, which will see £36bn reallocated into local transport projects – benefitting more people in more places, more quickly.”
