The mayors of Birmingham and Manchester, Andy Street and Andy Burnham, say a new railway between Handsacre and Manchester Airport is their preferred option to boost connections between the cities.
They convened a private sector group chaired by Sir David Higgins to evaluate three options to tackle congestion on the West Coast main line – upgrades, bypasses at ‘pinch points’ and a new railway.
Although final conclusions from the group – which has had input from Arcadis, Addleshaw Goddard, EY, Dragados, Mace and Skanska – are due in the summer, it has provisionally concluded that a new 70-mile-long route linking High Speed 2 at Handsacre and Northern Powerhouse Rail at High Legh is likely to offer the best combination of costs and benefits.
It would use the route of HS2 Phase 2a, which although cancelled still has Parliamentary powers, but with lower design speeds and ‘new engineering solutions’ – although it is unclear what the latter are. Some consultants have previously suggested building to UK rather than UIC loading gauge (as used on Phase 1) as a way of saving costs. An ‘in…
