The new plan to tunnel under Manchester – will it happen?

This week Andy Burnham revealed a vision for the future of transport in Greater Manchester.

It included plans to bring eight passenger rail lines into the Bee Network, the effect of which, according to the Mayor of Greater Manchester, would be “like doubling” the tram network overnight. It included long-awaited plans to bring the tram to Stockport and Middleton. And it also included plans to introduce “tram trains” to cover much of the city region.

Most notably, the vision encompasses a plan to build a tunnel under the city centre, as overground train and tram capacity is set to run out by around 2050. This ambition would cost “several billions” of pounds, according to Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM).

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However, at this stage, the new Rapid Transit Strategy is very much a draft. It is ‘not a costed or funded delivery plan’, according to new documents released by TfGM.

These documents were released to a meeting of Greater Manchester’s top political leaders on Friday (July 12) in Salford, chaired by the Mayor. It came two days after Mr Burnham unveiled the vision to the public at a press conference.

“There is a risk that the lack of connectivity and transport capacity could end up becoming a barrier to growth in our urban region,” he explained to reporters about why such lofty ambitions are in the strategy.

“That’s why I would stress the need to go underground at some point, not do everything above ground and, as every other second city anywhere else in Europe has done, go underground to support continued economic growth and not put a cap on Greater Manchester’s economic growth.”

The two tunnels would be laid out in a criss-cross formation, he added: “From the south-west to the north-east is where there is a lot of pressure on Metrolink, so the starting point is to look at trams, but clearly we also have plans to bring tram-train services on some of those routes, and there are options to bring rail lines, so that needs to be kept open and flexible.

“On the northwest-southeast axis, the main pressure is around the Castlefield corridor, so I think the initial work we have is leaning much more towards a regional metro-type service, but both need to be kept open.”

The following day, Mr Burnham appeared on his regular BBC Radio Manchester phone-in show, ‘In The Hotseat’, where he was pressed by presenter Anna Jameson about when a more tangible element of the strategy – taking the tram to Stockport or Middleton – would come to fruition.

“They wouldn’t be ready[by the end of the mayor’s term in 2028],” he admitted. “Could we start work on them? I would be disappointed if we didn’t. Should we have an agreed plan in place, planning permission and work starting – that is an absolutely realistic possibility.”

And at a GMCA meeting the next day, there was some cautious talk from the mayor. “We can’t afford to pay for everything or accumulate all the business cases we have,” he said in Swinton.

He was then challenged by Stockport Council leader Mark Hunter again over a firm commitment on when work to bring trams to the district would begin. The Lib Dem politician said: “We’ve seen so many of these reports talking about progress, but we’ve talked about it so many times and there’s been no progress being made. We’ve talked about the business case.

“At what point will that decision be made? Is there a time frame where you can say I think we’re still six months or a year away?

“Part of the problem is that because you — and others, including myself — have talked about this so often, there’s an expectation and a sense that we keep hearing about this, but it’s not happening. At what point might we see that decision being made?”

Mr Burnham retorted: “There’s no point in me saying ‘here’s the list where we’ve chosen these three (projects)’. There has to be a business case built, with you and us, otherwise it will go to the Department for Transport and be rejected.

“The business cases are at different stages. Having gone through that hurdle of sifting through[potential schemes and coming up with a shortlist]it’s not just us, it’s Stockport building the business case.”

The exchange between the pair was revealing, as it highlighted the disconnect between the rhetoric about transport and the reality on the ground. Despite all the progress in building the Bee Network – with buses set to be under full public control by January next year – there has been little progress in terms of new infrastructure since the integrated transport system was first announced in 2021.

This produced the somewhat infamous ‘Death Star’ transport map. But the only new transport infrastructure built since then has been bike racks.

More is to come, with new railway stations looking like a reality at Cheadle and Golborne, both of which have funding in place to build. They are also named in the 15 ‘emerging priorities’ in the rapid transit strategy, which includes the town centre underpass, the extension of the Metrolink to Stockport from East Didsbury and the Airport, and a Bury–Heywood–Rochdale–Oldham tram-train service.

Of these, the Stockport tram project is believed to be the most advanced – as the strategy says, “work is ongoing and will continue to establish the business case”. That business case has also been strengthened by the construction of thousands of new homes in the town centre and the recently opened interchange.

But for the bold plans in the draft to become reality, a number of things need to happen. First is “finalising the work looking at the 15 priorities later this year and coming back with technical assessments”, according to TfGM director Martin Lax.

Business cases for each project then need to be submitted to Whitehall, and the Department for Transport will assess each one. At this stage, Greater Manchester would be seeking government money to make it a reality.

However, some projects are more expensive than others — with tunnels reportedly costing “several billions” — which could affect which projects get the green light and which are left on the shelf.

That’s why Andy Burnham has yet to give a firm timeline for when projects like the East Didsbury-Stockport tram extension will start construction. “Building a Metrolink takes longer than[the remaining four years of this mayoral term]you have to do all the preparation, the planning process and then you have to build it,” he told BBC Radio Manchester listeners.

“By the end of the decade? Possibly.”