Business leaders say 'we're tired of broken promises'

EIGHT YEARS ON FROM GEORGE OSBORNE'S NORTHERN POWERHOUSE SPEECH, NORTH STILL GETS SECOND-CLASS SOLUTIONS, SAY CRITICS

- CHARLOTTE COX

BUSINESS leaders battling plans for a surface turnback station at Manchester Piccadilly have slammed a Government continuing to 'run roughshod' over the Northern Powerhouse promises made eight years ago.

It was on June 23 2014, that then-Chancellor George Osborne made his 'Northern Powerhouse' speech at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester.

He spoke of how, combined, the northern cities of this country could 'take on the world. He also described at length how the government would enable this. A high speed route between Manchester and Leeds and the second phase of HS2 came front and centre of the plan.

Eight years later, and the Manchester Evening News has launched another campaign around a transport project which, say leaders here, will turn swathes of the city centre into a building site, and blight land with viaducts.

And it fails, they say, to future-proof the capacity, reliability and resilience on the rail network that passengers so desperately need.

Manchester council's analysis shows the loss of valuable land will cost 14,000 potential jobs, while the overground station will rob the economy of the North of £333m a year up to 2050.