The North West of England appears to be in a boom time for infrastructure development and investment with many projects in planning, being built or completed in recent months. The general public’s attention can sometimes be diverted by the discussions about High Speed Rail, although this is far from being ‘shovel ready’ and many important projects are changing the landscape from Crewe to Cumbria.

Many may not have heard of the Mersey Gateway project, if living outside of Liverpool City region. This £600m project is the largest in England, outside of London and is providing a new six-lane suspension toll bridge across the river at Halton. This replaces the iconic Runcorn bridge – which was designed to take 9000 cars a day, and now peaks at 90,000 every 24 hours. This much needed relief scheme has changed the road profiles in the immediate vicinity and has also teamed up with an educational establishment, the Catalyst Centre, to encourage children to get interested in bridge building.

The Alder Hey Children’s Hospital new development has won design awards and will care for more than 275,000 children each year and is the first NHS health park for children in the UK. With an investment of £237m, it provides 270 beds, and incorporated design features suggested by children.

Work continues on the Ordsall Chord development, re-routing rail lines in Manchester City centre. Many of our members worked through the Christmas break on the project so that key work was done at a time where minimum disruption would be incurred. There are also several developments in the city centre, where larger commercial and residential new-builds are taking shape. Examples include the development of the Greengate site near Manchester Cathedral, and the redesign of Peter Square, and it is encouraging to see this level of investment in Manchester, where several years ago the recession stopped all similar projects.

Liverpool Superport has just been completed, which allows the port to accept the largest Container ships – an important step in encouraging shipping lines and importers to use the city rather than the traditional Felixstowe or Southampton destinations. This will bring more goods directly into the North West, avoiding clogging up roads and rail from the south as goods get distributed. Road projects around the region such as the Brooms Cross road, and the extension to the M55 will all add to the ‘efficiency’ and attractiveness of the region, and recent flood damage and flood defence work (particularly in Cumbria and Lancashire) will protect assets. On a local basis, the project to uncover the River Roch, to change the centre of Rochdale was a challenge in working with unknown, historic assets, upgrading the whole feel of the town centre by giving views to the river.

Future projects include the redevelopment of Manchester Airport, to upgrade this important travel hub, and the extensive Smart Motorways project will enable flow of traffic. Further north, new power systems and water supply systems are on the drawing board to enable expansion of all businesses in Cumbria, particularly of benefit to the Nuclear industry’s development plans.

HS2 preparations and planning continue, and many of our Members are involved. We also have ICE Membership representation on the ICE’s Northern Powerhouse Lifed Panel, which will work closely with Transport for the North, to shape thinking, and influence Infrastructure decisions. This is extremely important as we move into ‘Devolved’ times, and ICE is also working with Mayoral candidates and Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) in the region to offer access to expert engineering knowledge, as ‘we shape the world’ in the North West!