'Start of Northern Powerhouse Rail work is years, not decades away', says Transport for the North director Tim Wood

Tim Wood of Transport for the North (TfN) said everyone in northern England would benefit from the scheme connecting the region's biggest cities with high speed rail, even if they didn't live near one of the stations.

The scheme, which could cost around £39bn and would release vital capacity for passenger and freight trains elsewhere on the North's overcrowded rail network, has yet to be approved by Ministers.

And The Yorkshire Post understands there are concerns within government that the scheme is moving too slowly despite the promise made last year by Boris Johnson to speed up the Leeds-Manchester leg.

And Mr Wood, TfN's director for Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR), told a webinar today that he wanted a preferred network for the project to be presented to northern leaders by November so a strategic outline case could be presented to Ministers next year.

NPR, which is designed to provide an east-west link across the North stretching from Liverpool to Hull and Newcastle, is likely to be a mixture of new lines and upgrades to the existing network.

Responding to suggestions made by online participants that the scheme was "decades away", Mr Wood said: "Under my leadership NPR is not decades away".

He added: "We are expected to start, as I've said, in the financial year 2024/25. We are already starting to push the surveys out on existing infrastructure to start to develop our designs.

"We're also pushing for new stations to begin construction at Barnsley Dearne Valley and Rotherham Midland Mainline.

"And it's not just pure railways. What we're looking at as well is a tram-train system out from Sheffield over to Doncaster. So there's a lot of different types of infrastructure."

Mr Wood added that the scheme is "a lot more complex" than HS2, the controversial high speed rail scheme connecting London with Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.

He said: "We have new line construction, we have existing lines, major junction interventions, where we're going to have trains moving, as we construct the railway line.

"But it's really important that we can show the government that we can start on time, we can hold our budget, and we can deliver this for our leaders of the North, for the people of the North, because this is where it all began.

"So it's coming home to the North now. And this is where we need to stand up and be really strong and getting our strategic outline business case through."

During the webinar Liverpool's elected metro mayor Steve Rotheram said NPR would deliver "more bang for your buck" than HS2 if the most costly £40bn option was approved.

But he said support was needed for "the best option, not a sub-optimal cheaper option which is sometimes where governments are trying to steer us to".

He added: "What we need is not the best infrastructure that we can afford, because the South never gets offered that as a catch-22 question.

"We need, whatever the best option will be for the North, because that's what the South has always had and they've never had to compete, or to choose between one option which is sub-optimal or not getting anything at all. We need the same consideration in the North."

Mr Wood it was vital for NPR to be delivered "in full" and that TfN was looking at the "most transformational options", with evidence being built up on how it can meet the goals set out by northern leaders in 2015.

Anna-Jane Hunter, the northern director for Network Rail, which is responsible for the nation's rail infrastructure, said the terrain of the North including the Pennines made it harder to build new rail lines.

She said: "We need to work through what the best option is to deliver that for passengers and phrases as quickly as possible rather than jam tomorrow.

"If we keep always going for the gold-plated option, which I know my own organisation has been accused of doing in the past, then we take so long to get there that we're missing out on benefits in the meantime."