Manchester to beef up Piccadilly station development team
Recognising the chance to make an underground station at Piccadilly a reality, city council chiefs have secured backing to add firepower to the division charged with making the detailed case to government.
Manchester City Council’s executive today signed off a request made in a report to add resource to its transport teams. The report was authored by Becca Heron, strategic director of growth & development, and Pat Bartoli, director of city centre growth & infrastructure.
As today’s meeting was told by Leader Cllr Bev Craig, Manchester believes the Labour government’s promise of £45bn for Northern Powerhouse Rail is a weightier proposition than the vague transport promises made by earlier administrations.
Cllr Craig told the meeting: “Our pitch to successive governments has been that Manchester has driven levels of growth not seen elsewhere in the UK. But we know we’ll reach a point where we are constrained, and the connectivity and reliability of rail services are not good enough.
“For the first time, the reworked Northern Powerhouse Rail plan commits serious funding to the possibility of an underground station – something which shouldn’t be beyond our ambitions.”
Both Cllr Craig and MCC chief executive Tom Stannard reiterated that the level Manchester is working at, in the campact Agreement agreed earlier this year, is a key difference to earlier attempts.
What happens now
The report that went to executive today set out how £1m business rates growth reserve has been allocated to support initial delivery of commissioned work for 2026/27, as MCC works with Transport for Greater Manchester, government, and GMCA to map out Piccadilly’s development under the NPR programme.
The report said: “The city centre growth and infrastructure team is currently small, comprising a rail team and a growth team with a combined total of six full-time equivalent posts.
“Given the scale and complexity of the programme, the structure needs to be strengthened, requiring an additional resource in the current financial year, assuming new roles are filled within six months.”
The report continued: “A key element of this programme is economic analysis to assess the net benefits, whole-life value, and opportunity costs of alternative Manchester Piccadilly station options, including wider economic, productivity, and connectivity impacts using established land-use and transport modelling approaches.”
This work is jointly funded by MCC and the Department for Transport, with the report noting that “additional technical evidence will also be required to support the council’s case at the forthcoming Select Committee in relation to the NPR route and station, with further specialist commissions likely, although associated costs are still to be confirmed”.
The context
A compact agreement was signed in January between GM Mayor Andy Burnham and government, setting out a shared ambition to unlock growth across the Northern Growth Corridor and address historic under-investment in the North’s rail network.
Under this agreement, MCC, GMCA, TfGM and government are working jointly and collaboratively to assess the options for the Northern Powerhouse Rail station at Manchester Piccadilly.
The compact’s working agreement is that “An underground solution at Manchester Piccadilly could be a catalyst and enabler for major regeneration and economic growth for Greater Manchester and the wider North by unlocking land for redevelopment and additional connectivity”, and that “the option needs testing further in terms of value for money and delivering the right pan northern growth and transport objectives”.
The other major point in the timeline thus far came in January, when chancellor Rachel Reeves published the Northern Growth Strategy: Case for Change (NGS), followed in March by a ‘next steps’ publication that set out government’s plan to grow the Northern economy over the coming decades.
The NGS expands on the key priorities set out in the compact agreement, with early action focused on unlocking agglomeration benefits and enabling business investment, building out from Northern Powerhouse Rail.
As set out in the NGS, “better intercity connections, through an underground Piccadilly station, will make it easier for people to access jobs, education and opportunities; and easier for businesses to find the skills they need”.
Piccadilly potential
In addition to NPR, other potential Piccadilly investments as set out are:
- Manchester Piccadilly Additional Platforms (A & B): Likely to be the first significant investment at Piccadilly, the scheme will reshape operations, passenger flow, and the station environment — requiring an integrated long-term vision. This would help realise the benefits of the Trans Pennine Route Upgrade programme.
- HS2 Connectivity: Although the northern leg of HS2 has been cancelled, HS2 trains are still expected to run into Manchester by the mid-2030s. Piccadilly must provide a fitting gateway for the UK’s premier train service at its final destination.
- Platforms 13 & 14: Planned investment in passenger experience and safety on Piccadilly’s two congested through platforms must align with the wider Piccadilly vision and future capacity requirements.
- Bee Network integration: Piccadilly is the core rail hub within the Bee Network, and the centrepiece of the GM Rail Vision. It should reflect Greater Manchester’s ambitions for a seamless, high-quality public transport system.
- Seven Stations programme: Piccadilly is the flagship station within thus, and “should set the benchmark for design quality, accessibility, and multimodal integration”
The report noted that the £45bn commitment to NPR is joined by £10.4bn investment in local transport, and £1.7 bn City Investment Funds, and a commitment to develop a roadmap for future fiscal devolution.
MCC, therefore, “needs to maximise the opportunities that will be made available from this investment”.
Building up the team will give Manchester and its partners an enhanced resource to build its evidential case. The report said that further pieces of work are also being commissioned by TfGM to identify the benefits of the NPR scheme as a whole including improvements to services, journey times and other operational outcomes.
The analyses, taken together, will be aligned to a Green Book evidential case setting out the benefits to be achieved over the coming decades.
The work required is complex and of significant scale, said the report, concluding: “It is crucial that the Council commissions this work, and also works in partnership with the CA, TfGM and government, if we are to ensure we achieve the right outcomes with the maximum potential benefits in support of our growth objectives.”
When are Deloitte and Simpson Haugh being appointed…..?
By anonymous correspondent
Most people don’t use trains, why should our taxes pay for this? Fix the road infrastructure instead.
By Anonymous
Can you get Steve to explain how he reduced Merseytravels Officer capacity and what he intends to do about it. As usual GM have a proper transport vision LCR have cycle lanes.
By Frank
So, a million and one hoops to jump through, then finally, the dreaded Green Book comes in to play. In other words, as per usual, if Whitehall (full of southerners who commute in and out of work on the public transport in and around London), say NO, it will not happen. Was it ever this?
By Dave
Keep at it. A full scale revamp with underground through route is needed if the North is to make the next step up, and to make up for decades of underinvestment.
(It’ll benefit the whole of the north; please save any xenophobic comments for elsewhere)
By Anonymous
A consultant’s dream for the next decade.
By Anonymous
Possibly could start a subway line from here and could be our hs2 station
By Anonymous
You desperately need to extend the Metro out to Bolton or Chorley, this should have been doing 20 years ago. Other countries have better transportation facilities which stretch out to the suburbs as they are forward thinkers and were willing to take the risks years ago and spend. Instead of investing in useless Wars invest taxpayers money in better transportation links that create construction jobs and helps the environment. China and Canada were forward thinking countries that have excellent transportation links out to the suburbs. Relying on Northern is not good enough. 20 years ago if you did this you would not be in this situation. The motorway during rush hour stretch past Leigh now.
By Jane Doe
An underground line is essential to create capacity on the bottleneck at Piccadilly. If they reject it they’re only moving the problem to the future
By Anonymous
Waste of money. Instead of improving travel they’d rather waste money on digging into the ground. E.G. The 76 bus to Oldham stops at 11:45pm. To Piccadilly, 00:15. Yet other areas get all-night buses on a lesser timed schedule. And just to let anyone know who would refute they need an all-night bus; yes they would. Night shift workers have to take Ubers to and from work rather than able to get buses.
By Anonymous
@ June 10, 2026 at 4:07 pm
By Anonymous
Because it’s a social good. I pay taxes and I’m more than happy to pay for trains. People are not autonomous beings by their nature.
By Anonymous
I so hope this goes ahead – i always thought there was a lot of logic in turning the Northern cities into a Randstadt-type agglomeration. A connected transport ecosystem would help us all to get wealthier as housing pressure could be more spread out and it’d be much easier to apply for jobs/work across the whole region. You’d also be insulated a bit from any fuel shocks as we’d have viable alternatives to driving. Really pleased they’re taking it seriously and are going for gold.
By Fingers crossed
4:07 pm they don’t use them cos they need investment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
By 4:07 pm needs to ditch the car
“Most people don’t use trains” is incredibly short-sighted. Underfund the trains and the roads will get much more congested. Plus, private motor vehicles are THE MOST subsidised form of transport out there – more than trains, trams, buses, and cycles. I don’t have a car – yet my hard earned tax still gets used to subsidise motor transport. How is that fair? Make the motorists pay by introducing tolls to make roads make a profit, instead of the communist subsidies that roads currently get funded by. I’m joking of course, but that’s how dumb this whole argument sounds. Trains are a public good, as are roads. They should both be subsidised, and both are.
By Anonymous
That Piccadilly underground station (what cost benefit? only two platforms extra) will cost billions, be two decades in the making, and will save Man-London business passengers what? 10 minutes less travel time! When folk do daft things, it is often because they personally benefit: all those billions land in somebodys pocket. You cant fool me.
By Anonymous
Progress will require Burnham to become PM, otherwise forget it.
By WayFay
The headline arguments being put forward are pretty weak, in the context of a basic defence budget that is coming up £5bn short. Astonishing lack of national priorities if this gets any traction.
By John
As usual all being done with the collaboration of Central Government civil servants who have been brainwashed into this costly vanity project. Predictably all announced as benefitting the North when the main beneficiary is Manchester, same with HS2 and NPR.
We already have lines crossing the North from East to West so just upgrade them so we get faster journeys.
By Anonymous
There will be no progress if Burnham becomes PM. He’s about to find out there’s no money
By The Blob
Good luck in getting the cash for this.
By Anonymous
The working agreement suggests that an underground Piccadilly station could unlock major regeneration, open up redevelopment land, and boost connectivity across Greater Manchester and the wider North. It also acknowledges that the option still needs detailed testing on value for money and whether it genuinely meets pan‑Northern growth and transport objectives.
That’s a significant claim, Manchester already has a strong and expanding overground Metrolink network, the first of its kind in the UK. It’s not immediately clear where an underground station would deliver benefits beyond ideas we’ve heard before, such as linking Victoria and Piccadilly.
Manchester isn’t London, at least not yet, and the scale of intervention being proposed demands clearer justification. A more detailed “What would this actually do for Manchester?” assessment feels essential before the next steps are taken, and perhaps the programme should be refocused to answer that question first.
By Steve5839
Can’t wait to hear about Deloitte’s new commission with MCC
By Junior
There are some very short sighted comments on here.
First of all, plenty of people use trains (and trams), I know I squeezed onto one this morning… but numbers need to go up which they will with better infrastructure in place.
Secondly, even if it is just two underground platforms at Piccadilly, it’s a huge move forwards. Done properly it could bring trains and trams into a properly integrated underground network as is the norm for any small-medium sized German city (e.g Karlsrughe po. 300k with an excellent partly underground tram-train operation). We had this agreed in the 70s (Picc-Vic), funding was pulled but nothing has changed.. in fact the case has strengthened with subsequent economic/population growth.
As with HS2 the case has not been made about the wider ‘cost-benefits’ which is not all about speed and convenience but also capacity. Taking trains of the existing tracks will improve everyone’s experience. A fast underground rail connection with a stop at the airport for example would free up space on the congested Castlefield tracks (as would have platforms 15-16… also once promised then refused).
I’ve said it before (I’m sure we all have) but London has had billions spent on it to provide Crossrail and Thameslink upgrades (not to mention Overground, new Piccadilly Line upgrades etc etc) and you know what, they are great… but it needs to be shared around a bit now. Manchester underground, Leeds tram, high-speed rail alongside the M62 corridor.
For comparison, the Piccadilly Line upgrades alone are costing £3.4 billion with no new tracks or stations… GMPTE’s entire capital works budget is £38 million PA. That’s the level of disparity here – . We should be pitching higher and harder.
By Anonymous
@ Anon 1.13pm, so the North is just about Manchester and Leeds, I’m sure those in Sheffield, Newcastle, Bradford , Liverpool, Preston, York, Hull, will be pleased.
By Anonymous
I have been seeing this picture for 5 years now and still there is no sign of it materialising. Didn’t Reeves announce loads of investment in Rochdale ages ago? When are they starting on that? All this government do is make announcements.
By Elephant
Hopefully Burnham becomes PM and can make physical progress on this (spades in the ground is the cliche) before London Reform come in and cancel all rail projects in the North which is what they said they will do.
By Anonymous
As a UK taxpayer I welcome my taxes being spent on this and other public transport infrastructure. Investment in these type of projects is the only way to stop roads and motorways from being clogged up which results in a clogged up economic.
By Anonymous
Better connectivity across Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds-Hull corridor means better journeys for people in Bradford, Hudds and let’s say Wakefield etc too. Newcastle and York probably a slightly discussion around East Coast rail upgrades. Preston already incredibly well connected for size of population.
By @anon 1.51
@Elephant… TBF they have started on that programme of transpennine upgrades, Huddersfield station regularly closed, route diversions etc. All very welcome and something is being done, I understand for a large section it will go to three track, But it is tinkering around the edges compared to what has been cancelled and in comparison to what gets spent down south. Again, the whole of GMPTE capital budget is a fraction of a % on what is being spent on the Piccadilly Line upgrade alone, thats what we should be challening
By Anonymous
In case you haven’t noticed Reform are a bunch of chancers with no experience in office/of anything. That said what they seem to prefer (if much thought has been put into it at all) seems to be an Elizabeth Line of the north. Which is exactly what we need.
Liverpool-Manchester Airport-Underground through Piccadilly-Leeds-Hull probably at surface. A relatively simple project in any other country.
By Optimist
@June 11, 2026 at 4:16 pm
By Anonymous
London Reform? Barring Havering, it barely has much representation in the city. The party has far more representation in the north (which is not just Manchester. Thanks for the laugh though!
By Anonymous
Having just cycled to Amsterdam, the idea of Manchester being multi modal is laughable.
By Anonymous
No anonymous 4.16 Reform did not say any such thing..it’s such an easy thing to fact check this sort of nonsense that talking rubbish online just reflects badly on you and your party. Stick to facts and to this story which is a positive thing for the North for a change.
By Anonymous
I think the reference to London Reform was a dig that if they win an election, we will be saddled with yet a clueless London government. They may have no support in London but I am sure the extension to the Piccadilly Line, will be more important to them, than giving Reform voting Doncaster any real investment.
By Elephant
Whilst Piccadilly clearly need a total St Pancras-style makeover to accommodate both current a projected need along with properly incorporating a Metrolink station into the plans, it is clear cheap short-term patch-ups are of little use, not only for passengers around the city itself, bit across the whole of the North of England who rarely get in/out/across the city on time. My last Avanti journey from Euston stopped outside Stockport, then crawled the rest of the way to Piccadilly taking about half an hour in spite of the 9 day closure recently to ‘fix’ exactly these problems.
The other connected major issue is that rebuilding Piccadilly will not fix all the current issues unless the Oxford Road corridor capacity issue is fixed, and stations like Stockport in particular have their capacity increased as well so as not to simply shunt Piccadilly’s problems 10 minutes south.
By AltPoV
This is great news, an underground train, we may get tubes like London underground, fast truck to the Airport. Well done
By Bobi
@AltPov, the St Pancras overhaul for Eurostar cost around £800m, and that was back in the day, are you suggesting even more than that,with current costs, is spent on MancPicc.
Then you say Oxford Rd will also need an upgrade, plus Stockport, and where do you end. This is the silliness of HS2 coming into Central Manc when we should copy the French and have an out of town hub,where people can drive to or take a tram , or eventually commute on Northern Crossrail, HS2 should be travelling fast up to Scotland to make it most effective. We seemed to have partly understood that with the building of Old Oak Common.
By Anonymous
Interested to know about these French connections that do not come into city centres… Paris to Marseille for example is direct from Gare de Lyon to St Charles. They did build a new station in Lyon (a mere 12 platforms of high speed rail) but still in the city and with a whole new business district developed around it. That’s been completely rebuilt since 2018 (with tunnels and everything), just shows how far behind we are. Population wise Lyon maps pretty closely onto Manchester, a bit smaller if anything.
As for the Old Oak Common solution, well that does make some sense (to allow people to filter off the high speed line without going into central London), but it hasn’t stopped the link to Euston being built. This was also cancelled when the Manchester HS2 leg was, but seems to have quietly been green lit since (something about businesses paying for it – are they?) so now there is just an expectation it will happen and anyone who goes through Euston regularly will tell you it most definitely is…
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is the problem… billions down the back of the sofa for anything that goes wrong in London/SE (Bond Street Crossrail 5x+ over budget anyone?) whilst we argue about value of Piccadilly underground platforms and tinker round the edges everywhere else.
By @Anonymous 2.02
Hopefully some of this money could be used to make the area around the station safer. As someone who works in the station I regularly have to pass prostitutes, pimps and dealers while parking up behind Piccadilly. It’s bad enough for me as a bloke so I’m sure my female colleagues must feel wary also. The homelessness in the area also needs addressing with people who sleep rough always being removed from the station seating areas by security.
By Steve
@ Anon 2.58pm, the out of town Aix en Provence TGV station to the West of Marseille serves a very large catchment of way more than a million. Meanwhile Avignon TGV station does similar, as do stations at Valence, Nimes Pont du Gard, and so on.
In the major French cities generally TGV trains slow down considerably and switch to classic tracks miles before they reach their destinations eg Gare de Lyon, Gare du Nord.
By Anonymous
A complete waste of money, like the. third line to Liverpool, that could be used to improve local commuter services into Manchester
By Anonymous