Rail bosses have explained why they won’t be funding an underground station at Manchester Piccadilly as part of HS2 – claiming its ‘£5bn cost’ and the disruption it would cause outweigh the benefit. Northern leaders have long-warned that an overground station will ‘blight’ a huge swathe of the city centre, damage the economy and limit future capacity on our congested rail network.
But in November, with the release of the Government’s Integrated Rail Plan (IPR), it became clear that warnings from politicians and engineers alike had not been heeded when a preference was stated for a surface level ‘turn back’ station. And this week, they finally provided an explanation, with High Speed Rail director general Clive Maxwell claiming it would be too costly to go underground.
Mr Maxwell appeared before the Public Accounts Committee, where Kate Green, MP for Stretford and Urmston Kate Green asked the panel to explain the analysis of the costs and benefits of the Manchester station.
READ MORE: Second major city centre site bought to expand Piccadilly Station for HS2
Mr Maxwell confirmed the station was ‘intended as a surface station for High Speed 2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail’. He added: “The Department has looked very extensively, with HS2’s help, at what the alternatives were and at doing that underground. It would have meant digging a very large underground box and cavern to accommodate all those platforms, and that would have cost very large sums of money.
“It would also have led to huge amounts of disruption in central Manchester. I think the estimates we had were up to £5 billion extra for that station, so the Department, Ministers and the Government took the view that that was not the right thing to do, and that instead a surface station with a turn-back facility should be used, allowing trains to go in one way and come back out the other way.”
As experts scramble to find evidence of this £5bn cost, it’s likely Greater Manchester’s leaders are preparing their response. The Manchester Evening News has asked Mayor Andy Burnham and Transport for the North for their views. Both have long-argued for an underground station to future-proof rail connections across the north and boost the value of HS2.
They have also argued that the alternative – a ‘turn back’ station above ground on the northern flank of the existing hub – would create a concrete jungle of viaducts which will ‘sever’ east Manchester, with 14,000 potential new jobs lost due to the amount of land needed to build it, cutting potential economic growth by an estimated £333m by 2050.
The Government’s preferred option would rise up from underground on a viaduct at least nine metres high for a mile-long stretch between Ardwick and the new station. Manchester Council has said Northern Powerhouse Rail, the proposed high-speed link to Leeds, would then have to come back out of the station on another viaduct, somewhere near to the first.
And both leaders and technical experts warn that the station would be full from day one of HS2 and NPR, meaning the station would have no capacity to accept any extra services across the North beyond that. Such a move would not be seen in London, they also argue, where an underground HS2 station – with similarities to Manchester’s underground proposals for Piccadilly – has already been funded and is in the process of being built.
In direct opposition to the DfT’s insistence there is no convincing argument for an underground station, the council’s previous and latest analysis both suggest a huge opportunity cost – as well as the blight of communities to the east of the city and years, if not decades, of disruption.
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By building on the surface, HS2 would have to emerge from the ground in Ardwick, before travelling on a mile long viaduct of up to 12 metres in height to reach the new surface station. In order to then connect up to Leeds, it would have to turn back on itself and leave Piccadilly on more viaducts out across east Manchester towards Yorkshire. With detailed design proposals for NPR unavailable, it is unclear how far or exactly where those structures would stretch.
Leaders here instead want an underground version built at a different angle, so that the high speed service could simply travel straight through from London and on towards Yorkshire. Manchester’s argument also hinges on the huge economic cost of developing on the surface rather than underground
The council’s own analysis suggests that by building on the surface, the new high speed station would swallow up half a million square metres of prime development land, costing 14,000 potential new jobs in the process, along with 2,600 jobs in the immediate construction zone while work takes place.
Previous work by the technical consultants Bechtel, hired by the council in 2019 to look at the potential options for Piccadilly, had already concluded that pre-existing plans for an HS2 station were now simply having NPR tacked onto them as an ‘add-on’, rather than a fundamental reworking of the designs to ensure the most sensible solution.
Transport secretary Grant Shapps has previously denied in the House of Commons that rail routes would be raised on viaducts coming into Piccadilly. In answer to Blackley and Broughton MP Graham Stringer in November, he said HS2 ‘will not be on stilts coming in’.
“Of course, we can only spend the same money once and we need to spend it as wisely as possible,” he added of the Piccadilly plans.
“If we spend £6bn or £7bn building the station underground at Manchester, we will take away from Liverpool, Leeds, Hull or some of the other places that are calling for money.”
The Manchester Evening News has asked the DfT for comment.
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