The Mancunian Way: A coherent plan, please

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

Keep up to date with all the big stories from across Greater Manchester in the daily Mancunian Way newsletter. You can receive the newsletter direct to your inbox every weekday by signing up right here.

Here's the Mancunian Way for today: Hello It was announced yesterday that plans to build two new platforms at Manchester’s Piccadilly station were pulled by Network Rail in favour of seeking out alternative options - something which Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham says he only discovered at the very last minute as the decision was made public Rail minister Huw Merriman has unveiled £72m worth of upgrades to the region's railways, but the previously announced plans for platforms 15 and 16 at Picadilly will not be included after being deemed ‘hugely expensive’ and ‘incredibly disruptive’.

The Department for Transport (DfT) has said that withdrawing the plans ‘will enable all options to be considered'. "If you just stand at Manchester Piccadilly and imagine the disruption that would be necessary to build two new platforms alongside the two that are there now,” Network Rail’s North West managing director Tim Shoveller told Local Democracy Reporter Joseph Timan. "It would be the most incredible feat of engineering,” he added. “No one in Manchester would thank us for building that right now.

It is not the priority." Instead, part of the funding will be spent on a third platform at Salford Crescent station, improvements to existing platforms at Manchester's Victoria station and new 'turnback tracks' to help reduce delays, bottlenecks and overcrowding at stations.