Does Manchester need a high speed train to Liverpool?

Last month, proposals were released by Andy Burnham and his Liverpool counterpart Steve Rotheram for a brand-new Liverpool-Manchester Railway (LMR). And in the build-up to yesterday’s spending review, Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed the government wanted to build a new line connecting the cities.

In her speech, Reeves outlined her plan to spend an additional £113bn on capital investment on top of what previous government had planned over the next four years, adding: “my ambition and the ambition of people across the north is greater still and so in the coming weeks I will set out this Government’s plans to take forward our ambitions on Northern Powerhouse Rail.”

Those plans will be laid out in the government’s 10-year infrastructure strategy, to be published some time next week. In the meantime, we thought we would look at the plans proposed by Burnham and Rotheram and get some insight from experts. Does Manchester really need a new high speed line to Liverpool?