Wales is set to miss out on more than £1bn of funding for transport after the UK Government classified a second rail scheme based entirely in England as an “England and Wales” project.
The decision to classify Northern Powerhouse Rail as benefitting both England and Wales follows the controversy over the High Speed 2 (HS2) rail link which has been classified as England and Wales despite connecting London and Birmingham and then on to Manchester. Wales is set to miss out on as much as £5bn in consequential spending if the HS2 project costs £100bn, although the latest reports that the line to Crewe is being delayed for two years suggest that the current estimate is £71bn, which would make Wales' share £3.55bn.
Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) is a proposed major rail program that will see big upgrades to the connectivity of northern parts of England. Originally it was supposed to build a new line connecting areas such as Manchester and Leeds but it has since been scaled back but still include significant improvements to rail in the north of England including Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford and York.
