Leaders in Greater Manchester have demanded a breakdown of how high speed rail bosses have arrived at an 'unaffordable' estimate of £5bn for an underground station at Manchester Piccadilly. Both Mayor Andy Burnham and Transport for the North have long-argued for an underground station to future-proof rail connections across the north and boost the value of HS2.
They have also said that the alternative - a ‘turn back’ station above ground on the northern flank of the existing hub - would create concrete jungle of viaducts which will ‘sever’ east Manchester, with 14,000 potential new jobs lost due to the amount of land needed to built it, cutting potential economic growth by an estimated £333m by 2050.
However, High Speed Rail director general Clive Maxwell, who this month told the Public Accounts Committee that an ‘underground box’ would cost an extra £5bn and lead to ‘huge disruption’, also stated that going underground was ‘not the right thing to do’, while asserting that a surface level turn-back facility was the way forward.
READ MORE: London's £19bn Elizabeth line opens today - but where's the Crossrail for the North?
It follows the release of the Government’s Integrated Rail Plan (IPR) in November, which along with a downgraded Northern Powerhouse Rail and HS2, also pointed to an overground station as the preferred option. Now, leaders here are demanding to see how the Government has arrived at the £5bn figure.
Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, told the Manchester Evening News he ‘didn’t recognise’ the figure, adding: “It’s incumbent on them to explain exactly how they have come to that." Mr Burnham added: “More broadly, billions and billions have been spent on London’s stations over the years, practically every major station has had a huge overhaul in the last decade and yet you look at our train stations, the five city centre stations, when did they last see any major investment?"
He added: “Whatever the figure is in terms of cost of going underground why don't’ we deserve the station we actually need as opposed to just being told we get what we are given? One of the reasons we have so many problems with rail services and reliability for rail services is congested infrastructure in central Manchester.
“It just seems to me to be repeating the mistakes of the past.”
He said the overground option would hold the northern economy at a ‘lower level’, adding: “ "If this solution is built in 100 years people will say 'what were they doing?' Why didn't they get it right for the North? The North needs the best east-west connectivity it can have, that is an underground station at Manchester Piccadilly. Future generations won't forgive us. This goes beyond politics, it's what's best for the North of England for the rest of this century and beyond."
Meanwhile, in London, the £1.6bn Old Oak Common will be a new 850-metre ‘super-hub’ for HS2 in West London. Set to be the ‘best connected and largest new railway station ever built in the UK’, it will house no fewer than 14 platforms, with six high-speed ones underground and eight conventional ones above ground, four of which will serve Crossrail. And no unsightly viaducts here; twin tunnels will take high speed trains east to the southern terminus at Euston and west to the outskirts of London.
The M.E.N. asked the Department for Transport (DfT) for a breakdown of how they came to the £5bn figure for an underground station A spokesman said: “HS2 Ltd’s work on this has not been published and hence no breakdown is available currently.”
The debate is now entering the political arena with the Crewe-Manchester HS2 Bill, including the proposal for a cut-price underground station at Piccadilly, now coming before parliament. And despite the setbacks, the Mayor has vowed to persevere: "We will keep fighting and we will be fighting throughout the entirety of the passage of the (HS2) bill through parliament. I think we can win the argument in parliament."
The bill also includes the scrapped eastern leg of HS2, which should have run from the East Midlands to Leeds.
The Government's preferred option would rise up from underground on a viaduct at least nine metres high for a mile-long stretch between Ardwick and the new station. Manchester Council has said Northern Powerhouse Rail, the proposed high-speed link to Leeds, would then have to come back out of the station on another viaduct, somewhere near to the first.
And both leaders and technical experts warn that the station would be full from day one of HS2 and NPR, meaning the station would have no capacity to accept any extra services across the North beyond that. Such a move would not be seen in London, they also argue, where an underground HS2 station - with similarities to Manchester’s underground proposals for Piccadilly - has already been funded and is in the process of being built.
In direct opposition to the DfT's insistence there is no convincing argument for an underground station, the council’s previous and latest analysis both suggest a huge opportunity cost - as well as the blight of communities to the east of the city and years, if not decades, of disruption.
By building on the surface, HS2 would have to emerge from the ground in Ardwick, before travelling on a mile long viaduct of up to 12 metres in height to reach the new surface station. In order to then connect up to Leeds, it would have to turn back on itself and leave Piccadilly on more viaducts out across east Manchester towards Yorkshire. With detailed design proposals for NPR unavailable, it is unclear how far or exactly where those structures would stretch.
Leaders here instead want an underground version built at a different angle, so that the high speed service could simply travel straight through from London and on towards Yorkshire. Manchester’s argument also hinges on the huge economic cost of developing on the surface rather than underground
Transport secretary Grant Shapps has previously denied in the House of Commons that rail routes would be raised on viaducts coming into Piccadilly. In answer to Blackley and Broughton MP Graham Stringer in November, he said HS2 ‘will not be on stilts coming in’.
For interesting insight into the news stories of the day you can sign up to the Mancunian Way newsletter.
