FIVE NORTHERN CITIES SET TO REVEAL £15M PLANS FOR A ‘NORTHERN POWERHOUSE’

Five Northern cities are about to unveil a joint ‘One North’ £15m plan enabling greater connectivity between the West and East coasts and give greater prominence and opportunity for business prosperity in the North.

In June this year, as reported HERE, Chancellor George Osborne’s visited Manchester where he spoke to business leaders and proposed a third high speed rail link scheme – a ‘northern powerhouse’ with better connections between the cities of Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle and Sheffield.

Earlier this year Sir David Higgins’ review of phase one of HS2 identified the lack of good connections between the ease and west coasts.

Left: The current proposed phases for HS2

Speaking to the BBC at the time Mr Osborne said that Britain needs to create a “northern powerhouse”.

Individually the ciities are strong but by joining forces and with better connectivity they will better be able to address the in-balance where London is seen as the global powerhouse.

Mr Osbourne added that we need to make sure we have got a northern powerhouse so that our economy in this country is not unbalanced – so we are not wholly dependent on the success of the global powerhouse that is London.

He continued:

“But we have across the North of England individual cities that are better connected, that have a better quality of life and that are able therefore to generate economic activity across our United Kingdom.”

The chancellor said the plan could cost up to £7bn – but could be cheaper if existing rail lines were updated. He also called for improvements to the road networks and commented that it was not “healthy for our economy, not good for our country” if “the powerhouse of London dominates more and more”.