ST HELENS' political leaders will seek reassurance that a proposed new rail line between Liverpool and Manchester will not have a detrimental impact on St Helens and Newton's services to the cities.
As reported last week, Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram, Liverpool City Region Mayor, believe a new line will boost the economy of the North West and increase opportunities for businesses and residents.
The plans were announced after the mayors, along with other local politicians, recently launched the Liverpool-Manchester Railway Board, to improve connectivity between the two city regions.
Warrington's Bank Quay station has been earmarked for redevelopment as part of Northern Powerhouse Rail proposals.
Details of how the link could potentially impact on rail connectivity through the St Helens borough have not been released and it is unclear at this stage if the new line would call in the borough at all.
'It needs to be in addition to our route, not instead of'
However, local political leaders are known to want reassurances that a new line would not lead to a reduction in existing services from stations such as Lea Green and Newton-le-Willows.
The clear message to the new railway board is that it "needs to be in addition to our route, not instead of".
In a statement issued to the Star, deputy leader of St Helens Council, Seve-Gomez Aspron wrote: “The benefit of our geography has always been that we sit right in the middle of two major cities. So we benefit from both Manchester and Liverpool being well connected.
"We know that Lime Street is currently a bottle neck and needs serious investment from Government to help alleviate this pressure. The deep sandstone cuttings make this expensive.
"And we’ve also benefited from a number of new services through our borough in recent years such as Transport For Wales, Northern, TransPennine Express and going forward Lumo [which would see Manchester to London services run through Newton] provide exciting opportunities.
"As a borough, we would want to seek reassurance that any new route between Manchester and Liverpool via Warrington was not at the expense of services we currently get along the original Liverpool-Manchester route
"It needs to be in addition to our route, not instead of. And we’ve been very clear about that."
The Newton councillor added: "We currently get services that put Newton-le-Willows and Lea Green within 19 minutes of Manchester and Liverpool, and an hour of most of Yorkshire.
"And any new route must protect our access to those fast services, as well as more local commuter ones too.
"Particularly new services long our North South Corridor, which is why the Sutton Oak link [the former line between St Helens Junction and St Helens Central] is important too.
"So whilst we support increasing capacity and investment at both Lime Street and Central Stations in Liverpool, we will continue to push to retain our services through our borough, to serve the employment and housing opportunities in coming years.
"Freight is also a key aspect of this from Liverpool Docks through the proposed SRFI at Parkside.”
Grand plans
As part of the plans to improve services between the cities, underground station at Manchester Piccadilly is also envisaged along with improvements to Liverpool Central, the busiest underground tube station outside London.
Announcing the plans at the UK’s Real Estate Investment and Infrastructure Forum in Leeds, Mr Rotheram said it was 200 years ago this week when the first board meeting of the Liverpool and Manchester Rail Company was held.
Six years later the world’s first inter-city rail line was completed, between the two cities.
But Mr Rotheram said the journey time between the two cities today is comparable to the time it took in the early days of steam.
If the new plans come to fruition, the journey time between Liverpool city centre and Manchester Airport, now well over an hour, will be cut to 25 minutes.
Mr Rotheram said: “It won’t be like HS2 and promise after promise and nothing delivered.
“This is going to happen. We’ve got the budget, we want to increase that but also we genuinely have the best interests of the cities of Liverpool and Manchester and Liverpool city region and Manchester city region at heart.”
Last year, the Government finally confirmed the northern leg of the high speed rail link to Birmingham and London would be scrapped, saving around £36 billion.
The Government promised some of the money would instead be spent on other transport projects in the north of England.
Mr Burnham added: “The economy gets bigger if you build the railway in the right way.
“Steve and I have had confirmation from the Government that £17 billion is still in the plan, the integrated rail plan, to deliver this new railway.”
Mr Burnham said the £17 billion of public money is only a “starting point” and the board will be a public and private sector partnership.
He added: “This was the first railway in the world. Why can’t we now have an ambition around it being the most innovative, the greenest railway in the world as we bring it through, 200 years later?
“It’s going to be a really exciting project to work on and this is what true levelling up always should have been, isn’t it?
“This is us, doing it for ourselves, setting our own ambition, where hopefully UK Government enables, so finally all the pain of the debate around railways, we’ve kind of ended up at the right station.”
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