Northern Rail Project risks repeating costly HS2 failures, MPs warn

Building Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) risks repeating the failures of HS2 with “no convincing plan” to deliver it within a £45bn budget, an influential committee of MPs has warned. The government announced in January its commitment and funding for the NPR project to connect cities across the north, consisting of new or upgraded lines between Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, York and Sheffield. However, a report from the public accounts committee (PAC) said it was not confident that the Department for Transport had “learned all the lessons from its past failures in its management of other rail projects” and said there were “clear risks that the full programme and benefits cannot be delivered within its £45bn funding cap”. High-level plans for a transformed railway across the north were first announced in 2014 , and promised by successive Conservative prime ministers. While the latest iteration of NPR, a three-phase plan building on the current TransPennine Route upgrade work, has more detail, the committee said there was “considerable uncertainty still clouding the project”, including journey times, capacity, the exact routes, and who will build the new lines. The committee said it was “unclear how HM Treasury determined the £45bn cap before the entire project is designed, scoped and costed”. …