RIA Policy Note: Integrated Rail Plan for the North & Midlands b) Risks i)
The Eastern Leg of HS2 between Birmingham and Leeds will not be built in full – only between Birmingham and East Midlands Parkway. HS2 trains between Birmingham and Yorkshire will run mostly on an electrified and upgraded Midland Mainline. ii) The NPR line between Leeds and Manchester will be part new build/part upgrade of the existing route. Safeguarding of the route to Leeds will remain in place, although there is no commitment to complete this route. £100m has been allocated to explore how HS2 services can reach Leeds. Whilst electrification of the Midland Mainline is positive (and reverses the earlier cancellation), this will not provide the new capacity that a HS2 route would have entailed. Nor is it clear whether any evaluation has been made of the ability of the upgraded Midland Mainline to accommodate the additional traffic from HS2, whilst at least maintaining existing passenger and freight services. There is a higher risk of disruption to passengers whilst work is completed. On NPR, the selected scheme is the least ambitious of TfN’s proposed three options, with no commitment to complete a high-speed route as far as Leeds. The new plan has a value of £23 billion compared to an original budget of £39 billion. Whilst both schemes could be seen as ‘stepping stones’ on the way to full completion of the Eastern Leg and NPR, there is no commitment to this. Many in the railway industry feel there is a lack of longer-term strategic thinking, with potential impact on skills and on climate goals, as will be discussed in more detail in Section 3. 2) Funding, phasing and delivery a) Opportunities In terms of funding, the IRP commits the Government to a programme of investment of £96bn for rail construction and upgrades in the Midlands and the North over the next 30 years. This includes £54bn of investments on rail and local transport, in addition to the £42bn already included for HS2 Phases 1 and 2a between London, the West Midlands and Crewe – see Annex B for more details. In addition to this £96bn, further funding was announced in the autumn Spending Review, including: more than £5 billion to transform buses and cycling outside London; more than £8bn on local roads; £450m in new transport projects as part of the first round of the Levelling Up Fund; and £5.7bn for eight English city regions, to transform local transport networks. In the IRP, the Government commits to end the typical “boom and bust” in investment in the railway industry, by ensuring schemes are properly developed to provide a sustainable pipeline for the rail supply chain which can be delivered efficiently. They note that the approach to projects will reflect the Construction Playbook, and other lessons learned from major projects, by using cost ranges to reflect uncertainty and a portfolio approach to project development. All projects will be managed via the Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline (RNEP) process. The Government plans to apply the principles of Project SPEED to the IRP schemes. It also commits to using an adaptive approach, as recommended by the National Infrastructure 2 / 11
