Multi-billion-pound Sheffield to Manchester Pennine tunnel plans present "really exciting opportunity"
Infrastructure group Future Works have proposed a 14-mile-long dual carriageway
The South Yorkshire Mayor has thrown his weight behind multi-billion-pound proposals for a tunnel underneath the Pennines to give a smoother journey for those driving between Sheffield and Manchester.
The proposal for the 14 mile subterranean dual carriageway underneath the Peak District “presents a really exciting opportunity”, Mayor Oliver Coppard said.
Mr Coppard said he, “like everybody from South Yorkshire”, had done the journey hundreds and hundreds of times.
“We all know the frustrations of travelling between two of the North’s biggest and best cities,” he told a South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) Board meeting this week.
“It is imperative that we improve transport links between South Yorkshire and Greater Manchester, both for economic growth but also because of a host of other reasons.”
He also said he hoped Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who was formerly the Mayor of Greater Manchester, would register his support for the project.
Infrastructure group Future Works have proposed a 14-mile-long dual carriageway which would be built beneath the area’s rolling hills, known as Trans-Pennine Connect.
Mayor Coppard was responding to a question from South Yorkshire resident Richard Dutson, who’d asked him if a new proposal could be ‘worked up’ using a ‘drill-and-blast’ method commonly used in Norway.
Mr Dutson said recent Westminster evaluations of a Sheffield to Manchester tunnel were based on another, more expensive methodology - estimated to cost £10.6billion.
Concerns over the cost of connecting the two cities with a tunnel have been a key reason proposals haven’t progressed in the past, however, Future Works have estimated that using the Norwegian method could mean the project is completed for much less - around £2bn
Mr Coppard said: “I am really excited by the possibility that I’ve been reading about, which is a new method of tunnelling under the Pennines in a more cost-effective manner.
“None of that is easy… none of that is cheap, regardless of it being cheaper than the alternative.
“It has to be done clearly with a whole host of conditions in mind, not least the impact on wildlife and nature which would be paramount in our concerns. But, if we can do that in an appropriate fashion, I think we absolutely should explore that.”
Future Works have said about 20,000 vehicles travel across the Peak District every day and the idea could be funded without direct support from Westminster, and costs recouped over time from tolls.
The government, before Andy Burnham became Prime Minister, dismissed the idea for environmental and financial reasons.
However, the South Yorkshire Mayor reminded everyone the government is now led by ‘a man who well understands the pains of driving across the Pennines from Manchester to South Yorkshire’.
“So, Andy Burnham will, I hope… register his support,” he said.