A proposed 14-mile (22km) road tunnel between Sheffield and Manchester has won £500,000 to test whether it can be built. The money comes from the UK Dynamism Fund and goes to Trans-Pennine Connect, the scheme run by infrastructure group Future Works. The backers put the cost at about £2bn, and say it could cut around 30 minutes off the journey between the two cities.
The tunnel would run from Langsett, near Stocksbridge in South Yorkshire, to Tintwistle in Derbyshire. It would replace the A628 Woodhead Pass, a route long regarded as one of the most problematic crossings of the Pennines. The plan also includes restoring the historic Woodhead railway line.
What the £500,000 pays for
The grant covers the first stage: technical, environmental and financial feasibility studies. Michael Dnes, a former Department for Transport civil servant who leads the project, worked until 2021 on an earlier government plan to tunnel under the Pennines. Andrew Bennett, who leads the UK Dynamism Fund, called it “one of the most ambitious schemes anywhere in the UK”. The fund’s money comes from anchor donor XTX Philanthropy.
Bennett also said the full project will cost far more than the grant. He expects it to become attractive to infrastructure investors at a later stage.
Why £2bn, when government studies said far more?
Government studies have put the cost of a tunnel replacing the Woodhead Pass at £7.8bn to £11.6bn. A 2016 plan of around £10bn was judged too expensive. Those studies assumed a tunnel boring machine, but Trans-Pennine Connect wants to use drill and blast, the method used in Norway, which it says brings the cost down to about £2bn.
The scheme would rely on private money, for example from local authority or pension funds, repaid through a toll. The backers point to the financing of the Mersey and Tyne tunnels as precedent.
Getting between the cities is slow at present. The drive can take up to two hours, and the train from Sheffield to Manchester Victoria takes between 50 minutes and an hour and a half. South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard has backed the idea.
What still has to happen
A lot. The scheme needs government approval and must pass planning controls and consultation. The Department for Transport said in July that it had no plans for a trans-Pennine tunnel.
Future Works has met the Peak District National Park, the Trans-Pennine Trail and the area’s local authorities, holding a public meeting in Stocksbridge with another in Penistone planned. It wants construction to start before the end of 2030, and a July report said it hoped to open the route by the mid-2030s.
For now, nothing will change on the Woodhead Pass. The grant buys the studies that will show whether the £2bn figure holds up.
