Right now, if you want to pop across from Manchester to Sheffield, or vice versa, your quickest route is a winding drive or train ride through the Peak District. Despite being just 32 miles apart as the crow flies, thanks to all those hills and valleys it’ll take you more than an hour and a half to get from one city centre to the other by car.
In fact, Sheff and Manny are the largest pair of UK cities without a dual-carriageway connection, but an ambitious new proposal could be about to change that. Developers have announced plans for a Norway-inspired dual carriageway which could cut journey times between the Yorkshire and Lancashire cities by 30 minutes.
Turns out, the quickest way across the mountains of the Peak District isn’t over them or through them, but under them, because the plans include a 14-mile underground tunnel. Currently, about 20,000 vehicles travel across the Peak District each day, including large numbers of lorries. As well as cutting travel time, the subterranean route would also drastically reduce the number of commuters clogging the National Park.
The scheme, called ‘Trans-Pennine Connect’, would cut congestion from some of the park’s most environmentally sensitive areas and allow parts of the current route to be restored to nature.
Plus, the project would also move existing electricity infrastructure, which developers say could allow for the Woodhead rail route to be restored. The fast line between the two major northern cities closed to the public in the 1970s before being entirely removed in 1981.
If you’re wondering why no one’s thought to do this before, well, they have. This isn’t the first time an underground route linking the two cities has been floated, but economic concerns have prevented them from becoming a reality. Previous assessments have put the cost of the tunnel’s construction at around £10.6 billion.
Future Works, the developers behind the new proposal, say they can do it for less than £2 billion using a ‘drill and blast’ tunnelling technique commonly used in Norway.
The scheme is yet to get government backing, with a Department for Transport spokesperson saying the government currently has ‘no plans for a trans-Pennine tunnel due to significant financial and environmental costs’. However, a spokesperson for the East Midlands County Combined Authority said they welcomed the proposal. We’ll just have to wait and see whether the plans get buried or come to light.
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