‘Unduly swayed by special interests’: is a £17 billion line to Manchester Airport a bum deal for Liverpool?
What the city region stands to gain from Network North
Dear readers — if there is a row to be had in Liverpool, you can bet your bottom dollar it's about trains. Whether it's uncomfortable seats on Merseyrail or the regular Lime Street cancellations by Transpennine, nearly everybody in the region has something to say about our transport system. So when a £17 billion investment into a new Liverpool line to Manchester Airport comes around, is it a surprise it's caused quite a stir? In today’s edition, Abi digs into concerns that the proposed Liverpool-Manchester railway line is unfairly weighted in favour of Manchester, and asks: what exactly does the city region stand to gain from the latest plans?
🚨But first — we have some rather exciting news to share with you. Our parent company, Mill Media Co, is expanding! Yesterday we announced in the Financial Times that we’d be doubling our team by the end of 2024, including hiring another writer here in Liverpool. On top of that hire, we’re also looking to grow our team in Birmingham, as well as launch publications in Glasgow and London. You can find out more about the 11 jobs we have on offer here.
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Your Post briefing
Merseyside local hero Peggy Maskrey has died at the age of 103. Hailing from Birkenhead, ‘Auntie Peg’, as she was known to locals, dedicated her life to helping children living in poverty. She first attended The Mission on Hemingford Street in 1928, and volunteered there for over 90 years. In a 2022 interview, she told the Echo that her secret to a long life was gratitude: “I’ve always accepted life as it’s come”.
An update for those of you following our investigation into the Big Help Project, a homelessness charity in Liverpool that is under investigation for financial mismanagement and conflicts of interest by the Charity Commission (catch up here). The overarching Big Help group has now agreed to surrender leases on over 600 properties leased to them from London housing provider Home REIT. The properties were intended to be used by Big Help to house homeless people and prison leavers, but for over a year they have refused to pay rent to Home REIT due to the bad conditions of the properties. In recent days, Noble Tree Foundation — another charity that rented properties from Home REIT — has gone into administration. We’re currently working on Part Three of our investigation into Big Help. Know any more about these latest developments? Please email abi@livpost.co.uk.
And the Liverpudlian creator of TV drama The Responder has said that 2024 is an “exciting time” for the city's television scene. Tony Schumacher wrote the BAFTA-nominated show based on his own experiences as a police officer in Merseyside. Schumacher left the force to become a taxi driver, and was briefly homeless before he began his writing career. “It feels like it is a time for Liverpool at the moment, when it comes to filming and television,” he said in an interview with the BBC. “And you know, that’s exciting, to be a part of that.”
‘Unduly swayed by special interests’: is a £17 billion line to Manchester Airport a bum deal for Liverpool?
By Abi Whistance
Back in March, the government had a grand announcement. They had confirmed the route for a new £17 billion rail link between Manchester and Liverpool, paving the way for the next stage of Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR): a major development to better connect the North, first outlined over a decade ago. The route would connect Liverpool to Manchester Airport, cutting travel time to the airport from around an hour to just 25 minutes, as well as link up Liverpool City Region and Greater Manchester investment zones.
Since then the metro mayors of Liverpool and Manchester, Steve Rotheram and Andy Burnham, have been busy drumming up support for the project. Just two weeks ago they revealed they had formed a Liverpool-Manchester Railway Board, which would craft the strategy for the rail link between the two cities. On that board are both Burnham and Rotheram, as well as Manchester City Council Leader Bev Craig, Liverpool City Council Leader Liam Robinson, Warrington Council Leader Hans Mundry, and Manchester Airport Group managing director Chris Woodroofe. “It’s not going to be like HS2. This is going to happen,” Rotheram said at a conference shortly after the announcement. “History is truly being made this morning,” Burnham chimed in.
Unfortunately for Rotheram, the announcement hasn’t been quite so well received in Liverpool. Over the past fortnight, dozens of people have been airing complaints on social media that this deal primarily benefits Manchester. “So, now we know. Steve Rotheram has abandoned all pretence of bringing Liverpool closer to Manchester and Yorkshire, and has instead caved in to the £17,000,000,000, taxpayer funded, ‘South Manchester Urban Regeneration Project’,” one user wrote in the comments section of Place North West. “I’d be asking questions to Steve Rotheram and Andy Burnham as to how Liverpool does not figure in any of this but has been shafted,” wrote another sceptic.
The crux of their argument is that the investment will create new infrastructure and connectivity for Manchester, while Liverpool is left with upgrades to its existing base. The benefits are there for people travelling to Manchester, but less so for Liverpool. There’s a particular sticking point around airports, with Manchester able to fulfil its ambition of better connecting its own airport by rail, while Liverpool’s airport will remain one of the largest in the UK still without a rail service.
It’s not just the general public who feel this way. We’ve spoken to experts, campaigners and members of Liverpool City Region’s transport committee who say the £17 billion plan needs “more consideration” in order to strike the best deal for Liverpool, with one telling The Post that the make-up of the Liverpool-Manchester Railway Board raises “red flags”. Others, however, caution that Liverpool has more to gain from this £17 billion project than initially appears. “We’re just being put off by the word Manchester, it’s parochial,” a former advisor to Rotheram told us.
So what’s the truth here — has Liverpool struck a bum deal?
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