The government is set to be lobbied by more than 50 political and business leaders from across the North West next week on its decision to rule out an underground HS2 station in Manchester.
Evidence will be presented to the Department of Transport on Wednesday, July 6, at the House of Commons urging it to revise designs for Manchester Piccadilly.
Manchester City Council leader Cllr Bev Craig, the authority's chief executive Joanne Roney, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, Shadow Minister for Culture Media and Sport Lucy Powell MP, and parliamentarians from across the region will be in attendance.
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It comes after a report revealed an underground station at Manchester Piccadilly could cost in the region of £12bn and take up to 13 years longer.
The document, published by HS2, said the current above-ground plans would cost £7bn.
However, Manchester City Council has said that by changing the station plans, the local economy could see a benefit of an extra £333m a year than if the overground proposals go ahead.
High-Speed Rail director general boss Clive Maxwell recently said an underground station would be too costly to develop while Transport Secretary Grant Shapps also stated the underground option had been ruled out as it would drain money from other parts of the rail network.
Rail Minister Wendy Morton also rejected calls for a Manchester version stating that tunnelling would cause significant disruption and traffic congestion.
The new 166-page HS2 document considers three underground options of differing sizes and alignments.
All these, it's argued, would "require significantly greater volumes of material to be imported and exported…when compared to a surface station", the Manchester Evening news reports.
Citing the six-platform surface station as the 'preferred' option, the report, produced following consultation with stakeholders, states: "HS2 Ltd does not believe it is best placed to carry out any further work on wider benefits or commercial development outside of the construction boundary."
Further development of the options, says the report, would be 'unlikely to significantly change' the outcome, particularly in 'respect to cost and programme'.
"It is therefore HS2 Ltd’s recommendation that the proposed scheme for a surface station, to integrate HS2 and NPR at Manchester High Speed Station, is retained for the Phase 2b Western Leg hybrid Bill design, on grounds of cost, construction safety and programme implications to the delivery-into-service date of HS2 to Manchester.
However, Frank McKenna, chief executive of Downtown in Business, said: "The current plan, to deliver a surface station, will swallow up a massive chunk of city centre land that will otherwise be economically productive and support the city's 'levelling up' efforts.
"Instead, we are arguing that an underground version, which will cost an additional £3bn according to current projections, will provide £333m a year in additional economic benefit.
"The revised proposal put forward by the government, in my view, just cuts corners and doesn't mirror what HS2 has been designed to achieve and makes a mockery of the levelling-up agenda.
"With an underground station, we can make the most of space and make a real difference to the future of the city and the wider region."
