Manchester Airport Group (MAG), a UK based holding company that owns Manchester, East Midlands, Bournemouth and Humberside Airports in the UK, has welcomed the decision of the UK government to provide funding for the development of the Northern Hub railway project.
The project, worth £540 million, will include the improvement of rail services, and is likely to create improved access to Manchester Airport, for passengers from Rochdale and Halifax, as well as Liverpool, and Leeds.
The chief executive officer of Manchester Airports Group (MAG), Charlie Cornish, said, ‘Today’s announcement is an essential step in improving rail transport across the whole of the North of England. The improvements will provide better connections to towns and cities across the North of England into growth centres such as the new Airport City enterprise zone and provide better access to the international air links provided from Manchester Airport. That in turn will give businesses across the north better access to the global marketplace and allow the Northern economy to develop further on an international setting.’
The Northern Hub project is expected to generate around £4bn worth of economic benefits to the region that it serves, and to add around 20,000 to 30,000 new jobs to the local economy. The improved rail network will be expected to double the capacity of trains at the Trafford Park freight terminal.
David Higgins, the chief executive officer of Network Rail, a UK-based company that owns and operates most of the rail infrastructure in Great Britain, said, ‘Today the government has issued a strong vote of confidence in the railway, and in our ability to deliver sustainable economic growth through development of, and investment in, the network.
It is also a vote of confidence in the success of rail over the last decade, with over one million more trains per year with half a billion more passengers, at record levels of safety, punctuality and satisfaction.’
