George Osborne must get the electrification of the Manchester to Leeds train route back on track when he makes his Budget speech next week.

We want him to make a firm commitment to completing the project as planned after the shock announcement last week that it was being shelved.

And we also want a pledge that London’s Crossrail 2 won’t take priority over this vital component of the Northern Powerhouse.

The Examiner has teamed up with sister paper the Manchester Evening News and our call for action is being backed by rail passengers, business leaders and politicians.

Transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin triggered fury and disbelief last week when he announced an indefinite ‘pause’ was being put on the scheme - which would have overhauled one of the most overcrowded routes in the country.

Rail users took to Twitter in outrage under the hashtag #northernpowercut in the aftermath of the blow with Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman telling us he was hopping mad.

The fiasco – blamed on disarray within Network Rail – is said to have left the chancellor Mr Osborne furious. But it also led many to question the government’s commitment to the Northern Powerhouse vision, coming as it did just weeks after the general election.

Top Kirklees councillor Peter McBride said he feared for the future of any devolution deal without electrification and told how he felt betrayed.

We now believe it is time for the north to take a stand and have launched a petition which we urge you to sign.

SIGN THE PETITION HERE

An unbelievable 92% of transport infrastructure cash is already being spent in London and the south east – yet northerners are still being crammed into slow, second-hand carriages on outdated lines. The Huddersfield to Leeds service is one of the most overcrowded at peak times.

Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester council and a major figure in driving forward the region’s devolution deal with the chancellor, said: “If the electrification of the Manchester to Leeds line isn’t reinstated immediately then the northern powerhouse is at real risk of being dead before it even gets going.”

The £260m project was announced in 2011 and was due to be completed in 2017.

As part of £4bn in upgrades, it aims to boost capacity on routes between Manchester and Leeds through Huddersfield, including a First Transpennine Express service that sees one in three people standing on the busiest rush hour trains. The scheme also aims to cut journey times by up to 15 minutes.

Huddersfield Railway Station.

But even before the election, there was some suggestion its timetable might slip – and in the weeks that followed polling day its completion was put back to 2019.

Mr McLoughlin said major problems within Network Rail meant other projects had run over time and budget, while the electrification scheme itself needed more work than had originally been expected.

He announced there would be a ‘pause’ put on both the Manchester to Leeds project and the scheme between London and Sheffield. He said a better scheme would be drawn up - but there remains no indication of a timetable and many fear the project will be kicked into the long grass.

Yet upgrades to the Great Western line between London and the west would remain a ‘top priority’, he said. Meanwhile, pressure is building in London for the £20bn needed to build the second phase of CrossRail, running north to south through the capital.

But Greater Manchester’s interim mayor Tony Lloyd said northern England must now, finally, come first.

“We need to see the electrification put back as an early priority,” he said. “That’s got to take precedence over schemes elsewhere - however favoured they are by civil servants.”

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