Acting Chief Executive of Transport for the North, Tim Wood, outlines the priorities for the organisation in the coming months as the region looks to build back better from the Covid-19 pandemic.
It is a great privilege to be in the top chair, albeit temporarily, at Transport for the North (TfN) as it approaches one of the key points in its development. The next few weeks will be pivotal for the North.
With the opening of this new Parliament we are charting our way out of one of the most difficult years in all our lifetimes and back towards a recovery.
The Prime Minister has been explicit about his priorities for post-Covid Britain. He wants to build back better and to level up the national economy. We are fully supportive of these ambitions.
The North of England is bursting with talent and potential, but has been held back for too long by its poor road and rail connections, particularly those that run east-west across the region. This new Parliament will be an opportunity to start putting this right and to build the North into a high-investment, high productivity powerhouse.
Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) will be the single biggest infrastructure investment in the North of England since the Industrial Revolution, through a series of interventions including new lines and significant upgrades to existing ones, that will transform connectivity, capacity, and resilience across the network.
The programme will better connect the North’s major urban areas through vastly improved journey times and service frequencies, revolutionising east to west rail travel in the North and supporting more resilient and reliable rail connections outside of our region.
But Northern Powerhouse Rail is far more than just an investment in infrastructure. Delivered in full, the programme will better connect the major economic centres of the North, allowing the region to act as an integrated economy to generate opportunity, attract investment and create 74,000 new jobs, which will level-up the region and boost UK productivity – with up to £14.4 billion in Gross Value Added each year to the economy by 2060.
The Government’s long-awaited landmark rail investment blueprint – the Integrated Rail Plan – is now thought to be imminent. It will set out how major rail infrastructure projects like NPR and HS2 will be delivered. At TfN we have a preferred network and a solid evidence base to support it. What we need now is the political commitment to drive it forward.
Once the IRP gives us that clarity, we will be well placed to submit our NPR Strategic Outline Case before the end of this year and to move towards delivering the improvements for the travelling public. A new white paper, building on the recommendations of the Williams Review, will be published setting out how the operational railway will be run and managed.
As we begin to cautiously emerge from the restrictions of the past year and to start to return to a more normal life, we expect that public transport will return to the levels seen before the pandemic. More flexible working patterns may see some of the peak demand flatten off and for volumes to be carried more evenly throughout the day instead.
Some make the argument that the fall in demand of the past year means investment in road and rail is not as needed as before, but long-term investments should not be made on the basis of short-term trends.
The growth in travel, both road and rail, has been documented over the past two decades. We cannot allow our railways, which in the North have been significantly underfunded for too long, to continue as they are. Inadequate infrastructure is a constraint that the North must throw off. It is essential Northern Powerhouse Rail is built in full and HS2 delivered to both sides of the Pennines.
In 2020 we set out the first part of our Economic Recovery Plan (ERP) – a £5 billion pipeline of rail, road, active travel and smart ticketing proposals to help the economy ‘build back better’ after the Covid-19 pandemic. Submitted to Government, it detailed the first tranche of more than 160 projects to help create jobs in the North and set us on the path for growth.
We’ve since worked as a pragmatic partner to Government on the pipeline, including engaging with the Department for Transport’s (DfT)’s Acceleration Unit to make the case for speeding-up scheme delivery.
The Investment Programme Benefits Analysis, to be completed by summer 2022, will look at the case for the overall programme of investment and the wide-ranging benefits it will deliver for the North. It will be the first evidence base of its kind in the UK and could act as an exemplar for other parts of the country once adopted. This is a cornerstone piece of work by Transport for the North – a credible and compelling evidence base against which decisions can be made.
The decarbonisation challenge in the North is also significant. Travel around the region is dominated by car with nearly 60% of trips made via this mode, the majority of which only involve one occupant. Additionally, surface transport emissions across the North, including heavy goods vehicles, equate to 26 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. Over half of that figure comes from car journeys, another 10 of the 26 is emitted from road freight – 87% of which happen on our roads here in the North.
Using digital technology can help to bring down carbon emission reductions and to reach net zero, but that won’t happen without significant and transformational investment in rail’s infrastructure – the two are inextricably linked.
Our Decarbonisation Strategy, which will go out to public consultation this summer and is due to be finalised and published in the autumn, will set out the North’s challenges and opportunities in tackling carbon emissions from our transport networks, providing a clear pathway to follow over the coming years.
NPR, HS2, and Transpennine Route Upgrade from York to Manchester committed to in full will delivers a virtually wholly electric railway capable of moving people and heavy goods on our tracks in a low-carbon, energy efficient way. Diesel trains will be replaced with cleaner, greener electric ones, something which makes economic sense too.
The cost of electrification will be more than offset by lower capital costs of electric trains and lower energy, operating and maintenance costs.
Road investment remains key to our vision of a successful North and we will be continuing our efforts to advocate for strategic investment in the North’s major road network, and working alongside DfT and Highways England to showcase the benefits of reliable, resilient roads for our region’s people and businesses.
Whilst we await funding confirmation for a number of critical schemes, we are buoyed that some, such as the A66 dualling project, are to be accelerated as part of Project Speed.
We’re also continuing our drive to ensure our plans and statutory advice to Government are rooted in the strongest possible evidence, such as through a project to analyse mobile phone data to reveal the impacts of congestion. Understanding road use in this way will be critical as we exit the pandemic and see increasing levels of traffic.
Enabling active travel, ensuring electric vehicle infrastructure is delivered in the right time at the right place, and supporting the greening of freight on our roads, are also key focus points for the year ahead.
It all adds up to a huge portfolio of work for TfN and our partners to drive forward as we look forward to our new CEO Martin Tugwell joining us in August.
Let’s get on and deliver for the North.