West Midlands and Greater Manchester mayors outline options to revive rail after axing of northern leg of HS2
Two of England’s mayors have outlined their proposals to revive rail in the Midlands and North post-HS2, insisting they “won’t accept a do-nothing scenario”.
Greater Manchester’s mayor, Andy Burnham, and his West Midlands counterpart, Andy Street, teamed up after the government axed the northern leg of the high speed rail project last year, and are trying to find an alternative to improve services between the cities with the help of the private sector.
Now the pair have offered up three options – from smaller upgrades through to a whole new line – they believe would provide “real benefits” to both their areas.
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Briefing journalists at an event in Birmingham, Mr Burnham said failing to increase capacity in the North West “would be damaging to economic growth in the regions and would mean the West Midlands and Greater Manchester would be set back”.
West Midlands mayor Andy Street (left) and Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham
He also said it would leave the UK “with quite a serious transport headache for the rest of this century”, with both the West Coast Main Line and the M6 already “at capacity”.
The mayor added: “Having been promised Northern Powerhouse Rail with HS2 at its heartā¦ we won’t accept a do-nothing scenario.”
Mr Street outlined the alternatives on the table following the work they carried out with a private sector consortium – including engineers, construction firms and finance experts, led by former HS2 boss Sir David Higgins.
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The proposals are to either:
ā¢ Enhance the existing West Coast Main Line to “improve some of the most constrained parts” – though Mr Street warned it was the “minimal capital” option offering “minimum advantage”;
ā¢ Build major bypasses to the line at the southern end, as well as between Crewe and Stockport, alongside upgrades to the existing line;
ā¢ Construct a completely new and segregated line, but not built to the specification of the high-speed line in the south.
They could not commit to Sky News that there would be no need for public funding, but insisted it was “the less complicated part of the network” due to no need for tunnelling, and the transport benefits would be “huge”.
Mr Burnham also denied the ideas were “HS2 by the back door”, telling reporters they had “reluctantly” accepted the decision to scrap the second leg of the high speed project.
But Mr Street added: “We do believe there is a real benefit in one of those three or some blend between them,” added Mr Street.
The mayors shared a map of where their proposals would be focused – between Birmingham and Manchester.
Both mayors also praised the approach of Transport Secretary Mark Harper to their work, saying they held a “constructive” meeting with him last week and planned further talks in March.
The minister had previously suggested he was “open-minded” to any proposals, though he remained “somewhat sceptical” about whether HS2 could be completed without public investment.
Asked by Sky News about doubts in Westminster over their project, Mr Burnham said there were schemes “around the world” that had been largely privately funded, such as the expansion of the TGV in France, showing it can work.
“Those sceptical MPs really should look up some of what’s been done in other parts of the world where infrastructure have been delivered successfully in a less costly way than the original HS2 [line] and where the private sector has played a considerable role in taking the risk off the public sector,” he said.
“This is not unrealistic or pie in the sky. There are plenty of examples.”
West Midlands mayor Andy Street also praised the approach of Mr Harper, telling Sky News: “It would have been very easy for the government to double down on the difficult decision they took at the Conservative Party conference.
“They have not done that.”
He adds: “The transport secretary has said it. He says he is ‘open-minded’ and described the meeting last week as ‘constructive’, so they are definitely willing to examine the outputs of this.”
But despite all the work with the private sector, would the final plan still need taxpayer cash?
“Not necessarily,” said Mr Burnham. “But that’s what [our] work will be looking at.”
Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf says his party’s mission is to “remoralise” young people.
Speaking off the back of his party’s massive gains in the local elections, Mr Yusuf said young people were being taught to “hate their country” and that Reform’s mission was to change their morals.
“There has been an industrial-scale demoralisation, particularly of young people in this country, who are basically being taught quite deliberately that they should hate their country; they should be deeply ashamed of their country’s history; that the United Kingdom had a brutal empire,” he told The Times.
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“Look, of course, you know, the British Empire was not perfect, but I actually think overall the British Empire did much more good for the world than it did bad.”
He said the party’s mission was to “remoralise” the youth and that within a couple of months of gaining power, Reform would erect statues of great British figures and end “all this woke nonsense”.
He continued: “How many young people know who Isambard Kingdom Brunel is? Look at the character assassination that has occurred on the legacy of Sir Winston Churchill.
“The fact that they have to cover up his statue because they don’t want to provoke protesters. I mean that’s the sort of utterly indefensible so-called leadership that we’ve had and young people feel that in their bones.”
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He said he believes Reform leader Nigel Farage’s message is “resonating” with young people and added: “I think that a lot of young people we speak to feel very smothered by a finger-wagging sort of teaching class.
“They feel very restricted, they feel a huge lack of opportunity ā¦ You’re going to hear from us over the next couple of years more and more of a policy platform for young people, for Gen Z and for millennials.”
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Voters turn to Reform UK
Mr Farage has been more focused on what his party’s trajectory is doing to the Conservatives, saying in his column for The Telegraph that Kemi Badenoch’s party had been “hollowed out” and is experiencing a “strange death” due to the rising popularity of Reform.
He said the UK had reached a “new political age”, reiterating earlier claims that two-party politics “is finished”.
Reform chairman Zia Yusuf will be appearing on Sky News’ Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips from 8.30am this morning.
OKX founder and CEO Star Xu has publicly defended the crypto exchange after Tron founder Justin Sun accused it of failing to act on a law enforcement request to freeze stolen funds following a recent hack of Tronās official X account.
āOKX also has consumers protection policy according to law, we canāt freeze a customerās funds according to your personal X post or an oral communication. I think you should understand it as the CEO of HTX,ā Xu said in an X post.
OKX says there is no communication in the spam box, either
Xu said that the crypto exchange had not received any related correspondence through OKXās official channels. āOur LE cooperation team just checked the email, including the spam box; we havenāt received any request related with this case,ā Xu said.
In what is now an unavailable X post, but was screenshotted by Xu, Sun had earlier claimed that OKX has not responded to a āfreeze noticeā sent to its official email address from a ārelevant law enforcement agency.ā Sun said that he had no other way to contact OKXās compliance department.
āThese stolen funds do not belong to me; Iām acting to protect the community,ā Sun said. On May 3, Tron DAO told its 1.7 million X followers that its account had been compromised. Tron explained that during the breach, an unauthorized party posted a malicious contract address, sent direct messages, and followed unfamiliar accounts.
āIf you received a DM from our account on May 2, please delete it and consider it the work of the attacker.ā
In response to Sunās claims of inaction, Xu publicly called on him to provide a screenshot showing when and where the law enforcement request was made.
The Tron incident is one of several recent security breaches involving high-profile crypto accounts on X.
Related: Over 14,500 Tron addresses at risk of silent hijacking
Kaito AI, an artificial intelligence-powered platform that aggregates crypto data to provide market analysis for users, and its founder, Yu Hu, were the victims of an X social media hack on March 15. The hackers opened up a short position on KAITO tokens before posting that the Kaito wallets were compromised and advised users that their funds were not safe.
The Pump.fun X account was compromised on Feb. 26 to promote a fake governance token called āPUMPā and other fraudulent coins.
Meanwhile, the X account of UK member of Parliament and Leader of the House of Commons, Lucy Powell, was hacked to promote a scam crypto token.
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