Is our 'Northern Powerhouse' the promised land?

TEN YEARS FROM WHEN TORIES FIRST ANNOUNCED A COALITION OF CITIES, WHERE DO WE STAND?

- JOSEPH TIMAN

AMID relics of Manchester’s industrial past, 10 years ago a new era for the North of England was ushered in.

The Northern Powerhouse speech at the Museum of Science and Industry set out a vision of an interconnected region that, together, could ‘take on the world’.

The idea was that, by joining forces as a ‘collection’ of cities spanning from Liverpool to Hull, the North could compete with other major conurbations on the global stage. “Together,’ George Osborne said, ‘our northern cities can be more than the sum of their parts’.

The then-Chancellor and ‘local MP’ for Tatton promised a ‘radical transport plan’ for the North, new regional mayors and investment in science, innovation and culture.

He described the ‘vital’ HS2 line that was supposed to boost rail links to London as ‘the most important investment in the North for a century’ - and called for the construction of a third high-speed railway line linking Manchester to Leeds.

Later that year, Prime Minister David Cameron brought Chinese President Xi Jinping to Manchester and declared that the Northern Powerhouse project now had the backing of China. Mr Osborne promised billions of pounds would be coming into northern England.

The next few months saw a flurry of investment flowing into Manchester - including £78m for The Factory arts centre, which opened as Aviva Studios last year - and a quarter of a billion pounds for the University of Manchester’s Henry Royce Institute of advanced materials. The following year, work on the Ordsall Chord - a new train line linking Manchester’s city centre stations - got under way.

But by the time the train line opened in 2017, things had changed. A political victim of Brexit, Mr Osborne was no longer pulling the purse strings.