Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield have formed an alliance to lobby the Government for £15bn to improve infrastructure such as the road networks.
The key demand included in the alliance’s ‘One North’ report is for Westminster to fund what’s being heralded as the ‘Crossrail for the North’ – a 125mph trans-Pennine rail link to Newcastle that will provide better access to Manchester Airport.
Part of the £15bn will also be used to improve the road network, with One North proposing rolling out what it calls “managed motorways”. It wants to add variable speed limits to the M62/M60/M56 network and on the M1 and the M6/M61 north-south corridor.
More ambitiously, it also wants to complete what it calls “long-standing gaps in strategic links”. This meansroad building to improve the gap from the North East to South Yorkshire, and northwards towards Scotland.
Finally, there are also plans to improve the link between Sheffield and Manchester.If approved, there will also be cash for a £350m super-port.
With a combine population of more than 15 million – more than London – the ambition for those behind the project is for the North to become the destination of choice for investors, helping it become a “dynamic counterweight and compliment to the London and South East economy”.
Other elements of the proposal include improving regional rail links.
