A628/A616 Trans Pennine Corridor plans (M67-M1)

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M56phil
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A628/A616 Trans Pennine Corridor plans (M67-M1)

Post by M56phil »

Just a question really rather than a posting…

All the talk of the Manchester - Sheffield tunnel seems to have gone very quiet over the past year or two. I understand that this has been scaled down somewhat - however, to what exactly?

What are the future plans for the A628/A616 corridor between the M67 and the M1?

I get the impression we are only going to get piecemeal improvements - maybe not even any dualling.

Does anyone have any more information on the future stretch of this road?

Many thanks
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jackal
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Re: A628/A616 Trans Pennine Corridor plans (M67-M1)

Post by jackal »

The 2020 RIS2 document talks about there needing to be a national debate about the tunnel before the next RIS. Obviously that has not happened so it is pretty much parked for now at least.

The tone of the RIS2 document is curiously different from the 2019 TfN Strategic Transport Plan, which envisaged a short tunnel and utilising the existing route (inc. the A57 link roads scheme), and seemed to treat it as more of an active scheme.

I don't think there has been announcement or document on it in the last couple of years. There were rumours in 2021 of it being formally dropped but I don't think that happened.
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Re: A628/A616 Trans Pennine Corridor plans (M67-M1)

Post by Hdeng16 »

You’ve got the money-pit Tankersley roundabout “improvement” - what more do you want.

It’s taken a lot of work to achieve precisely nothing.
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Re: A628/A616 Trans Pennine Corridor plans (M67-M1)

Post by wrinkly »

The Mottram bypass and the link towards Glossop are still in the pipeline, now known as "A57 Link Roads", but no longer include a bypass of Hollingworth or Tintwistle. Examination by the Planning Inspectorate has been completed and they have to send a recommendation to the SoS by 16th August.
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Re: A628/A616 Trans Pennine Corridor plans (M67-M1)

Post by fras »

I suspect that whoever becomes prime minister, there are going to be huge budget cuts all round government due to the dire financial situation. I can see road plans disappear into the future, and HS2 Phase 2b being suspended, and also the proposed line to East Midlands. The money just isn't there anymore.
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Re: A628/A616 Trans Pennine Corridor plans (M67-M1)

Post by wrinkly »

fras wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 00:47 I suspect that whoever becomes prime minister, there are going to be huge budget cuts all round government due to the dire financial situation. I can see road plans disappear into the future, and HS2 Phase 2b being suspended, and also the proposed line to East Midlands. The money just isn't there anymore.
There's plenty of money in the country. There's been a vast transfer of wealth over recent decades from people who do things to people who own things (and charge others for their use). A wealth tax would be very handy - but most unlikely to happen, especially if the Tories win the next general election.
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Re: A628/A616 Trans Pennine Corridor plans (M67-M1)

Post by KeithW »

wrinkly wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 01:00 There's plenty of money in the country. There's been a vast transfer of wealth over recent decades from people who do things to people who own things (and charge others for their use). A wealth tax would be very handy - but most unlikely to happen, especially if the Tories win the next general election.
They tried that in the 1960's and 1970's, the rich left and took their money with them, they didnt even have to go far, the Channel Islands were quite popular as I recall as was the USA, there was a reason John Lennon moved to the USA and George Harrison wrote the song "Taxman" despite being avowedly left wing.

To name a few other tax exiles
Mick Jagger (France)
Michael Caine (USA)
Lewis Hamilton (Switzerland)
Sean Connery (Spain and Bahamas)
David Bowie (Switzerland)

Lots of luck differentiating between money earned 'doing things' and 'owning things'. Many of the latter dont even live in the UK but most are institutions, here are the top 50
https://tlio.org.uk/the-uks-50-biggest- ... money-com/

The top 3 landowners are
1) Forestry Commission
2) National Trust
3) Ministry of Defence

I dont see much chance of raising taxes from that lot.
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Re: A628/A616 Trans Pennine Corridor plans (M67-M1)

Post by rhyds »

Successful F1 drivers have pretty much always lived either in Switzerland or Monaco for tax purposes. IIRC Jackie Stewart even had to ask for a specific exemption to be allowed back to the UK for Jim Clark's funeral in 1968.

The problem with "taxing them until the pips squeak" is that, especially in modern times, its not that difficult for folks to conduct their business from anywhere in the world, and if you make it too expensive to operate in the UK, then firms and especially individuals will simply relocate (on paper if not physically). Economists call this the Laffer curve, where there is little government income at a 0% tax rate but also there's also little income at a 100% rate. The trick is finding the point in the middle of the range that gets you the most income without killing the golden geese.
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Re: A628/A616 Trans Pennine Corridor plans (M67-M1)

Post by Bryn666 »

rhyds wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 09:56 Successful F1 drivers have pretty much always lived either in Switzerland or Monaco for tax purposes. IIRC Jackie Stewart even had to ask for a specific exemption to be allowed back to the UK for Jim Clark's funeral in 1968.

The problem with "taxing them until the pips squeak" is that, especially in modern times, its not that difficult for folks to conduct their business from anywhere in the world, and if you make it too expensive to operate in the UK, then firms and especially individuals will simply relocate (on paper if not physically). Economists call this the Laffer curve, where there is little government income at a 0% tax rate but also there's also little income at a 100% rate. The trick is finding the point in the middle of the range that gets you the most income without killing the golden geese.
The easiest way to get the super rich to pay their taxes is for their taxes to actually be seen to improve things. We are paying taxes left, right, and centre yet the country is falling apart at the seams. Where exactly is the money going?

There's no incentive to be a taxpayer because there's no evidence you're putting into a national investment in, well, anything. If I was a business owner I'd be looking at how education is being trashed and thinking "why am I paying for people to be put through a failing system as they're never going to come out the other side", looking at healthcare and asking why when NI has gone up, and investment has supposedly never been higher, that people have to wait months to even see a GP.

Neither of the two main political parties have any clue how to actually run a country. They need booting out and pronto.

As for a tunnel across Woodhead, as we've discussed before it just creates more problems than it solves as it stands. The M60 can't take any more traffic and neither can the M1, so encouraging lots of car commuting between Manchester and Sheffield is insanity. It would be far better to vastly improve the rail links between the Manchester-Leeds-Sheffield triangle, improve the options either side of the national park to discourage the need to drive into the Peak District by tourists etc.

Regardless, the A628 at the very least needs to bypass Tintwistle, and then be realigned and overtaking lanes provided in the eastbound direction because HGVs regularly reduce the entire thing to a crawl.
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Re: A628/A616 Trans Pennine Corridor plans (M67-M1)

Post by Chris5156 »

KeithW wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 09:31The top 3 landowners are
1) Forestry Commission
2) National Trust
3) Ministry of Defence

I dont see much chance of raising taxes from that lot.
A hypothetical tax on wealth levied according to property ownership would surely never just count up how much land everyone owned and tax them per square inch. The value of land, and the wealth one can raise from it, depends on its location. A property investor who owns a portfolio of luxury houses in London will earn far more per acre of land owned than the Forestry Commission does. So a list of the UK’s biggest landowners, according to area owned, is a bit of a canard.
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Re: A628/A616 Trans Pennine Corridor plans (M67-M1)

Post by KeithW »

Chris5156 wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 20:09
KeithW wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 09:31The top 3 landowners are
1) Forestry Commission
2) National Trust
3) Ministry of Defence

I dont see much chance of raising taxes from that lot.
A hypothetical tax on wealth levied according to property ownership would surely never just count up how much land everyone owned and tax them per square inch. The value of land, and the wealth one can raise from it, depends on its location. A property investor who owns a portfolio of luxury houses in London will earn far more per acre of land owned than the Forestry Commission does. So a list of the UK’s biggest landowners, according to area owned, is a bit of a canard.


If you look at the list by income then look here
https://www.statista.com/statistics/321 ... ingdom-uk/

Guess who owns most of the commercial property in London - here is the top 10 in terms of income

1 Canary Wharf Group Investment Holdings
2 The Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London
3 Transport for London
4 Aviva
5 BNP Paribas (a French international banking group)
6 The Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty in Right of Her Crown [The Crown Estate]
8 SEGRO (British Company that owns land in UK and EU) it was called the Slough Group
9 British Land Company
10 Network Rail
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Re: A628/A616 Trans Pennine Corridor plans (M67-M1)

Post by KeithW »

One thing to remember about taxing UK property companies is that most of us have pensions funded by investments in them. Be careful what you wish for - you might get it.
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Re: A628/A616 Trans Pennine Corridor plans (M67-M1)

Post by roadtester »

Interesting juxtaposition between the quality of links from Manchester to Sheffield and those between similar pairs of cities elsewhere.

https://twitter.com/thomasforth/status/ ... MsVwnBgvEQ
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Re: A628/A616 Trans Pennine Corridor plans (M67-M1)

Post by KeithW »

roadtester wrote: Wed Apr 26, 2023 18:00 Interesting juxtaposition between the quality of links from Manchester to Sheffield and those between similar pairs of cities elsewhere.

https://twitter.com/thomasforth/status/ ... MsVwnBgvEQ

Well Austin is a medium sized city on the route from the Mexican border at Nuevo Laredo to Dallas Forth Worth. Equally to the point it runs through a pretty darned flat part of the country and the only public transport option is flying or spending a day on a Greyhound bus.
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Re: A628/A616 Trans Pennine Corridor plans (M67-M1)

Post by the cheesecake man »

roadtester wrote: Wed Apr 26, 2023 18:00 Interesting juxtaposition between the quality of links from Manchester to Sheffield and those between similar pairs of cities elsewhere.

https://twitter.com/thomasforth/status/ ... MsVwnBgvEQ
of course there's no need for an international comparison: Leeds-Sheffield (M1>M621), Leeds-Manchester (M621>M62), Sheffield-Nottingham (M1), Sheffield-Derby (M1>A38), Manchester-Liverpool (M62 or A580) ....
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Re: A628/A616 Trans Pennine Corridor plans (M67-M1)

Post by KeithW »

If you do want an equivalent US route consider Richmond VA to Lexington VA through moderately hilly terrain. The road is a 2 lane Interstate with hard shoulder.
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Richmon ... authuser=0

GSV
https://www.google.com/maps/@38.0447152 ... authuser=0
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Re: A628/A616 Trans Pennine Corridor plans (M67-M1)

Post by JammyDodge »

I would say just make it a tolled route, even if its unpopular, you don't have to pay for it if you don't use it
I had a look at how much the Mont Blanc tunnel costs out of curiosity. ~£46 one way, ~£56 return for a car. Not awful by any means for what you get.
Looking at a route that parallels the existing A628/A616 I estimate between 7-12km of tunnels, and 35km of new D2M (yes I would go D2M)

Hindhead cost ~£300m for ~1.2 Miles
Inflation puts that at around £415m today, so lets say £450 for tomorrow
Stretching that out to just the tunnelled sections, roughly 6 miles (~10km), the tunnels sections could cost ~£2.7bn, so lets round up to £3bn
Screenshot 2023-04-27 170641.jpg
A mile of D3M cost in the region of £30m in 2011, roughly £41mtoday. Lets say £45m tomorrow.
~22 miles of D2M is required (Assuming the cost of D2M in challenging terrain is similar to the D3M figure)
Rough costs for the 22 miles would be £990m, lets round up to £1bn

The cost for such a scheme could be in the region of £3-5bn for the route

So what about tolls?
Say a return toll is £50 for a car for the entire route
Woodhead takes in the region of 12k cars per day, assuming all are return trips, thats ~6k per day
Now, induced demand. I will assume an induced 4k return journeys per day, bringing us to ~10k returning cars per day
Thats £500k/day, £182.5m/year. Lets round down to £150m/year for bond payments
Assuming ~£150m/year for bond payments, the payback of a principle of £4bn would take 26-27 years. Not that terrible in my mind.
However, if we assume cost is £4bn, with a 5% interest on a 30-year bond, with bond payments increasing at 2%/year, we get a payback period of 21-22 years, even better.
Debt-Chart.jpg
In the chart above, the red actually good, money paying down the bond.
What happens after the bond is paid is ultimately politics
(Sorry if this is a weird, my brain just became laser focused making a very rough estimate cost)
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Re: A628/A616 Trans Pennine Corridor plans (M67-M1)

Post by fras »

The M6 Toll seems to have lost it's promoters lots of money, and the tolls are now pretty high compared to what they were, but nowhere near £50. Every time I travel on the M6 Toll, I find it quite empty, certainly there are almost no HGVs at all.

I would think that if a £50 toll was applied to a future M67, there would be almost no traffic on it at all.
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Re: A628/A616 Trans Pennine Corridor plans (M67-M1)

Post by Bryn666 »

fras wrote: Fri Apr 28, 2023 00:43 The M6 Toll seems to have lost it's promoters lots of money, and the tolls are now pretty high compared to what they were, but nowhere near £50. Every time I travel on the M6 Toll, I find it quite empty, certainly there are almost no HGVs at all.

I would think that if a £50 toll was applied to a future M67, there would be almost no traffic on it at all.
The train works out cheaper in that scenario doesn't it? Maybe we should be massively upgrading the Hope Valley line instead!
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Re: A628/A616 Trans Pennine Corridor plans (M67-M1)

Post by Barkstar »

JammyDodge wrote: Thu Apr 27, 2023 17:31 I would say just make it a tolled route, even if its unpopular, you don't have to pay for it if you don't use it

Say a return toll is £50 for a car for the entire route
A decade ago I commuted over the A628 everyday - I don't expect to see any meaningful improvement to the route while I'm still driving. Since the M67 was opened over forty years ago millions have been spent on surveys and reports and even now a small improvement is on hold because of nay sayers waiting til the last minute to exercise their latest objection.

A toll road isn't the answer, and at that sort of price even those on expenses and the rich would likely baulk at paying. Our piecemeal approach to tolls means such a scheme would be socially divisive, effectively denying use to those on lower incomes or who can't pass on the costs. And if built on such a basis it would also deny those locally of the route however tortuous it is currently - saying 'you don't have to pay for it if you don't use it' would be no comfort to them.

There's no justification - other than financial - for creating such a road. Which as things stand is the same for all our toll roads and bridges really. Personally I think it should be all or nothing.
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