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the challenges from 2014-2019.”


He advised: “There is a very close working relationship with all the train operators and passenger transport authorities and local government across the North to make this happen. The chambers of commerce have also made a big play of this being a crucial infrastructure investment in the North for business to succeed.


“We’ve also had some very large organisations recent- ly add their voices in sup- port, such as Peel Holdings, Manchester Airport Group and PricewaterhouseCoopers, who have all made public statements that the Northern Hub is vital if the North is to do business better and therefore grow, led from the pri- vate not the public sector.


“We’re developing a project with good information, good facts and good data to allow government to choose what it believes should be funded. David Higgins, in front of the Transport Select Committee, gave our views on the important schemes for the future, and that’s


a single proposal to address the challenge of meeting economic growth across the whole of the North. The analysis we’ve done tells us that for every pound you invest, the British economy gets £4 back. Separately, KPMG have done some work for GMPTE that identified the capability of it creat- ing 20,000-30,000 extra jobs.”


why we’re developing something based on evidence and facts, sup- ported by what people are telling us is the right thing for business.


“The improvements in rail services the Northern Hub facilitate can drive that growth across the North of England, by bringing the cities closer together and making sure the people who work in those cit- ies can commute into them, and by giving better access to interna- tional markets through the biggest airport outside London, which is Manchester.”


Does the Northern Hub stand or fall as a single project, or could parts of it be adopted and some rejected? Botham said: “We’ve developed the Northern Hub as


It is not just the urban North West and West Yorkshire which will ben- efit, he insisted, explaining how the Northern Hub will also mean better services for passengers heading south from Newcastle.


He said: “The benefits flow all over. We can talk about building things, but where we build them isn’t the only place the benefits flow. The benefits flow where we can run new services. It’s as much about improving the journey of the busi- nessman in Newcastle to do busi- ness in Manchester or Liverpool as about somebody based in the North West wanting to do busi- ness in Yorkshire.


“Many of the trains operating through the network now run from


Newcastle to Manchester Airport, there’s one of those an hour. But rather than having four trains coming into Manchester and stations beyond from the Leeds direction, from Hull, Newcastle, Middlesbrough, the capability exists for us to have six of those trains coming through, so you can have more direct trains and more destinations.”


He said the Northern Hub, as a project of national importance, will not be affected by Network Rail’s devolution of power to regional business units.


Visit www.networkrail.co.uk/north Graham Botham


FOR MORE INFORMATION


If all goes to plan, the project will be done by 2019. Botham con- cluded: “It will mean a bigger la- bour market and that it’s easier to get to your customers, as well as being able to re- cruit from a wid- er talent pool. It’s our job to make sure everyone knows about the benefits.”


rail technology magazine Feb/Mar 11 | 11


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