Going underground?

TRANSPORT SECRETARY OPEN TO CONSIDERING STATION PROPOSAL

- JOSEPH TIMAN

A NEW underground station could still be built at Manchester Piccadilly.

The government had previously dismissed the proposal, but the transport secretary has now said he is open to considering it as he set out plans for a new train line across the North of England.

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has hailed the statement as a ‘real breakthrough’. It comes after the government scrapped plans for an underground station at Piccadilly which was originally proposed as part of the HS2 project that was axed last October.

Instead, the high-speed trains were set to arrive into the city on huge concrete viaducts which local leaders described as ‘ugly and intrusive’. The M.E.N. has campaigned against the proposal, arguing that it would be ‘unthinkable’ in London.

Local leaders claimed the move, which would swallow up half a million square metres of prime city centre land, would end up costing Manchester’s economy £333m a year. They argued that an underground station, which would also be used for Northern Powerhouse Rail, would ‘future-proof’ the region’s railways, claiming that a surfacelevel station would be at ‘full capacity’ once both lines are built.