{"id":537432,"date":"2026-02-03T12:45:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T12:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/?p=537432"},"modified":"2026-02-03T12:41:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T12:41:12","slug":"northern-powerhouse-rail-wont-be-procured-before-design-completed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/civils\/northern-powerhouse-rail-wont-be-procured-before-design-completed-03-02-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Powerhouse Rail \u2018won\u2019t be procured\u2019 before design completed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The transport secretary has promised to fully design Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) before tendering for contractors.<\/p>\n<p>Heidi Alexander pledged in the House of Commons on Monday (2 February) to finalise the scope of works for the relauched \u00a345bn project first and vowed to avoid \u201cthe same mistakes as the previous government\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe will not be letting contracts when we have not defined the scope of works,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>In response to a question from Liberal Democrat transport spokesperson Olly Glover about learning lessons from HS2, Alexander said the previous Conservative government \u201cgave the go-ahead to HS2 when they did not know what they were asking the contractors to build\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The government <a href=\"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/government\/northern-powerhouse-rail-revived-with-1-1bn-funding-14-01-2026\/\">set out its plan to resurrect NPR last month <\/a>using a bill designed for a now cancelled portion of HS2, between Crewe and Manchester.<\/p>\n<p>It has issued assurances that NPR will not mirror the same path as HS2, after its chief executive Mark Wild last year admitted construction work on the high-speed rail <a href=\"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/civils\/hs2\/hs2-government-began-construction-too-fast-10-07-2025\/#:~:text=Starting%20construction%20work%20on%20HS2,megaproject%E2%80%99s%20chief%20executive%20has%20said.\">project began \u201ctoo fast\u201d<\/a>, risking project inefficiencies.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, Wild criticised the way HS2 had proceeded, adding that the client, HS2 Ltd, \u201creally didn\u2019t have the maturity of design and consenting\u201d at that time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you\u2019re designing something in the morning and trying to build it in the afternoon, you end up with a lot of inefficiency,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>In an overhaul, last June, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/civils\/future-megaprojects-to-have-separate-construction-and-design-phase-budgets-27-06-2025\/#:~:text=Jon%20Loveday%2C%20director%20of%20infrastructure,a%20megaproject%20in%20its%20own%20right.\">treasury officials pledged to have separate construction and design<\/a> phase budgets for major infrastructure projects going forward to ensure design work was complete before launching construction work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The transport secretary has promised to fully design Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) before tendering for contractors. Heidi Alexander pledged in the House of Commons on Monday (2 February) to finalise the scope of works for the relauched \u00a345bn project first and vowed to avoid \u201cthe same mistakes as the previous government\u201d. \u201cWe will not be &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90643,"featured_media":536042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[549,565,39314],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-537432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-civils","category-government","category-hs2","issue-online-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.7 (Yoast SEO v26.7) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Northern Powerhouse Rail \u2018won\u2019t be procured\u2019 before design completed | Construction News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The transport secretary has promised to fully design Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) before tendering for contractors. Heidi Alexander pledged in the House\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/?p=537432\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Northern Powerhouse Rail \u2018won\u2019t be procured\u2019 before design completed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The transport secretary has promised to fully design Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) before tendering for contractors. Heidi Alexander pledged in the House\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/?p=537432\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Construction News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CN.community\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-02-03T12:45:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cdn.ca.emap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2026\/01\/generic-rail-image_shutterstock_1978079525.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"620\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"414\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joshua Stein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@CNplus\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@CNplus\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Joshua Stein\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/?p=537432#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/?p=537432\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Joshua Stein\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/482eae6a8521cf09396402a7e955effc\"},\"headline\":\"Northern Powerhouse Rail \u2018won\u2019t be procured\u2019 before design completed\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-02-03T12:45:22+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/?p=537432\"},\"wordCount\":266,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/?p=537432#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/cdn.ca.emap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2026\/01\/generic-rail-image_shutterstock_1978079525.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Civils\",\"Government\",\"HS2\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/?p=537432#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/?p=537432\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/?p=537432\",\"name\":\"Northern Powerhouse Rail \u2018won\u2019t be procured\u2019 before design completed | Construction News\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/?p=537432#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/?p=537432#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/cdn.ca.emap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2026\/01\/generic-rail-image_shutterstock_1978079525.webp\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-02-03T12:45:22+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/482eae6a8521cf09396402a7e955effc\"},\"description\":\"The transport secretary has promised to fully design Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) before tendering for contractors. 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