Burnley to Manchester via Tod

A think tank report by the Centre for Cities confirms that good rail
connectivity makes local economies work - something that we all take
for granted but the DfT doesn't appear to believe in. CfC compare the
two cases of London and Reading and Manchester and Burnley. It would
appear that the case of reinstating the curves at Todmorden to reduce
the Burnley Manchester travel time to 35 minutes would a move in the
right direction in terms of improving the local economy..

Original Report
http://www.centreforcities.org/assets/files/pdfs/City%20Links.pdf
Guardian Article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/mar/18/transport.thinktanks
quote
Poor transport links hit wealth of outlying northern towns
Robert Booth
The Guardian,
Tuesday March 18 2008
This article appeared in the Guardian on Tuesday March 18 2008 on p21
of the UK news section. It was last updated at 00:04 on March 18
2008.
The economies of northern towns are falling behind their southern
counterparts because transport links to the big cities of Leeds,
Manchester and Newcastle are inadequate, according to the Centre for
Cities thinktank.
Congested roads and trundling trains across Lancashire, Yorkshire and
the north-east mean the residents of outlying towns in the north have
been left behind by an urban renaissance which has boosted the
economies of the region's biggest cities over the last decade.
Research by the thinktank found less than 3% of Burnley's residents
travel to work in Manchester while 10% of Reading's working population
commute twice as far to London. The journey across Lancashire takes at
least 1hr 10mins with a change, compared with the journey from
Berkshire to Paddington which can be completed in 25 minutes. "Poor
commuter rail services and growing congestion on the roads and rails
has made it very difficult for the people of smaller towns to dip into
the vitality of the northern cities," said Adam Marshall, head of
policy at the Centre for Cities.
"There is a case for making greater public spending on regional
transport by central and regional government a priority."
The thinktank found that towns in the south-east benefit more than
towns in the north from the principle of "agglomeration", where
economic benefits spread from the concentration of people and business
in major cities.
"Growth in the northern regions largely relies on the longterm
contribution of Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle supported by a few
smaller centres - Chester, Warrington and York," said the report. "But
agglomeration in the greater south-east appears to work more
efficiently than in the north."
The research showed that the difference in economic wealth between an
average resident of Blackburn and of Manchester (south) has grown from
£1,800 to £6,000 between 1995 and 2004. Measured over the same period
the average wealth gap between Barnsley and Leeds has grown by £4,000
a person. In the south-east the average person's wealth in Reading has
overtaken London and the wealth gap between Oxford and London has only
grown by around £1,000.
"There is a massive need for much better regional transport around
Manchester," said Tom Bloxham, chairman of Urban Splash, the
Manchester developer and a regeneration adviser to the government.
"Where you get other towns like Bolton and Blackburn with proud
industrial histories it's quite hard for their political leaders to
get away from that past and realise that their future is closely
linked to large cities like Manchester. But the lack of transport is
also a problem for our city. We need people to come to work and to
spend money and many don't because of the unreliable public
transport." He added that the trains and buses were also unattractive
because of their disrepair.
unquote
.

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