'Blueprint' for northern English transport a 'timely invitation' to foreign investors, says expert

The document sets out how £13 billion planned investment in road and rail projects to connect up the so-called 'Northern Powerhouse' around Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds will be spent. The plans include £4.8bn investment in over 40 major road schemes across Yorkshire by 2020/21, new franchises on the Trans-Pennine rail service between Leeds and Manchester and the replacement of older 'Pacer' trains on northern routes.

Transport expert Patrick Twist of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said that although the document was a "restatement" of the many transport projects that were either recently completed, currently underway or had already been announced, it provided a useful reference point.

"There is a distinct lack of timetable attached to many of the future projects that are listed," he said.

"What the 'blueprint' does do, however, is pull together in one place all the transport infrastructure investments that are planned to help create the Northern Powerhouse - although that also serves to highlight that, even taken together, the £13bn investments are still less than the investment in Crossrail on its own," he said.

So far this year, new electric train services began running between Manchester, Liverpool and Wigan for the first time. The newly-refurbished Manchester Victoria station is due to open this autumn, and a new southern entrance created at Leeds station to serve the expanding commercial area south of the River Aire.

Work is also due to begin to deliver faster trains and better services between Sheffield and London, ahead of the longer term planned extension of the proposed national high speed rail line HS2 to Manchester and Leeds by 2033. In the longer term, the government has proposed a 'HS3'-style 'TransNorth' rail network, with sections capable of speeds of up to 140 miles per hour, which would link all the major cities in the north of England.

The announcement was made as UK transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin visited the region to open the new A5758 Broom's Cross Road between Thornton and Switch Island in Merseyside. This road, which was backed by £14.5 million in funding from the Department for Transport (DfT), has been built to ease congestion in the area and improve highway access between Southport and the north west motorway system. He also visited the Farnworth Tunnel, where major work has started to provide faster rail journeys between Manchester, Bolton and Preston by the end of 2016.

Transport expert Patrick Twist of Pinsent Masons said that those in the industry with interests in the north of England would be watching closely to see whether any changes to the plans emerged following the government's planned spending review in November.

"[The announcement] comes only a couple of months after Patrick McLoughlin had to announce that the much-trumpeted electrification of the Trans-Pennine and Midland Mainline routes was to be 'paused' in light of delays and cost overruns in Network Rail's investment programme," he said.

"We all know improving transport infrastructure from the nation's roads to rail is a national imperative and long overdue. What could derail or delay this investment is the government's desire to make further cuts and potentially to impose further 'pauses' in the spending review if the wider economy slows, or if global market conditions take hold of potential investors," he said.