Mayors from across the North have written to Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak urging whoever ends up as Prime Minister to meet them and re-think the Government's cut-price rail plan for the region.
In a letter seen by The Northern Agenda politics newsletter, the five Labour mayors raised their concerns about the controversial Integrated Rail Plan and called on the winning candidate to meet with them to "agree a better way forward for the North".
The call from North of Tyne's Jamie Driscoll, Greater Manchester's Andy Burnham, Liverpool City Region's Steve Rotheram, West Yorkshire's Tracy Brabin and South Yorkshire's Oliver Coppard comes ahead of the two senior Tories' face-to-face debate in Leeds tomorrow (July 28).
Read more: Government rail plan for the North does not deliver on 'stated aims' of levelling up
After it was unveiled in November, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the £96bn IRP would slash journey times across the North with 110 miles of new high-speed line, with benefits coming quicker than in the original plans put forward by Transport for the North.
But it was dubbed 'the great train robbery' by Labour after breaking promises made by Boris Johnson to build a full new high speed line between Leeds and Manchester and to build the eastern leg of HS2 in full all the way to Leeds.
And closer inspection of the plan revealed the requested investment by Northern leaders had roughly been cut in half and instead of the new lines promised, much of the cash will go towards upgrades of existing routes.
Northern mayors have long been calling for HS2 to be built in full in the North and for a new high speed Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) network to run from Liverpool to Leeds via Manchester and Bradford.
But instead of sticking to its previous promises over NPR the Government rowed back on that plan in November last year, instead opting for upgrades to the current line connecting Liverpool and Warrington. From Warrington, a new high speed line will be built to Manchester and on to Marsden in Yorkshire.
The eastern leg of HS2 will go only as far as the East Midlands from Birmingham and not all the way to Leeds as originally planned. And Bradford missed out on a high speed rail station despite Northern leaders saying this was vital to transform the city's prospects. Leaders in Greater Manchester are also furious after after plans for an underground HS2 station at Piccadilly station were shelved to save money and a cheaper overground station suggested instead.
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They say the new solution is short-sighted, will result in the loss of 500,000sq metres of prime development land, cut off Metrolink lines and blight the city centre by turning swathes of land into a building site.
Earlier this week, major Northern news titles urged North Yorkshire MP Mr Sunak and Leeds-educated Ms Truss not to turn their backs on the North by letting the issue of regional inequality slip off the agenda.
The mayors wrote in their letter: "As two people with strong connections to this part of the world, we know you understand the frustrations of people here with the poor quality of east-west rail connections across the North.
"It is why the clear commitment to build Northern Powerhouse Rail in the 2019 Conservative Manifesto was so widely welcomed. It is also why the Integrated Rail Plan (IRP), published in 2021, has caused huge disappointment.
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"The promise of a new line across the North - starting with Manchester and Leeds - can be traced back to George Osborne’s 'Northern Powerhouse' speech in the summer of 2014. It was repeated by the current Prime Minister when he took office in July 2019 and in your 2019 Manifesto.
"In all that time, we have been working hard on a cross-party basis, through Transport for the North, to agree a plan to delivers that new line linking the North’s great cities.
"We remain firmly of the view that this project is critical to unlocking the full potential of the Northern economy in the 21st century and levelling us up with the South. What has been put forward in IRP falls far short, cuts Bradford out completely and does not deliver on the promises the Conservative Party has made to the North of England.
"We have been encouraged, however, by the fact that you have both signed up to the Mayor of Tees Valley’s ‘Levelling Up Pledge’, which includes a commitment to “the full construction of Northern Powerhouse Rail”.
"To us, Northern Powerhouse Rail is the scheme proposed by Transport for the North and not the proposal in the IRP about which there was no consultation with anyone in the North."
They also raised the fact the cross-party Transport Select Committee today concluded that the IRP “will reduce the prospects of meeting ambitions for the North” and has called on the Government to reconsider its evidence base.
And they added: "We are aware of the huge demands being made of you both at this time. That’s why, at this stage, we are asking no more of you than to make a commitment that, if elected as Prime Minister, you will agree to sit down with us and see if we can all agree a better way forward for the North. This could be part of the review that the Transport Select Committee recommends.
"This is a critical decision that will affect the lives of generations of Northerners to come. We owe it to them to show the highest possible ambition for what the North of England can be in the future. Will you commit to meet with us?"
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