The Transpennine Route Upgrade (TRU) has released its first Sustainable Development Report, showcasing significant achievements in sustainability from April 2019 to March 2024. The £10.7bn rail programme, spanning Manchester to York, aims to leave a long-lasting legacy across the North, combining environmental protection, economic growth and community engagement.
Key milestones include achieving BREEAM Infrastructure ‘Excellent’ ratings for projects such as the Leeds Station Capacity Project and works between Manchester Victoria and Stalybridge, where initiatives like sourcing 90% of materials responsibly and donating Victorian-style canopy columns to Bolton Heritage Railway were recognised.
The TRU Sustainable Development Strategy – Our Guiding Compass – outlines four pillars that steer the programme through sustainable activity: Northern jobs, enhancing the environment, customer satisfaction, and communities.
Sustainability credentials across these four pillars include:
Northern Jobs
- 270 apprentices employed, on track to 590 target by programme completion.
- On target for 60% of the project workforce living within 25 miles of the route and 80% within 40 miles.
- 66% of spend outside the TRU framework is going to local suppliers within 25 miles of the route.
Enhanced Environment
- Equivalent of 25 football fields of land, across 6 separate plots of land, proposed for new habitat creation.
- 20,000 tonnes of soil and 13,000 tonnes of excess aggregate has been reused to date, minimising waste.
- Carbon training implemented across the programme, with a programme aim of reducing 230,000 tonnes CO2e by 2035, saving six million tonnes of CO2e over a sixty-year period.
- Both TransPennine Express and Northern are already operating electric passenger services between Manchester Victoria and Stalybridge, with the full route to be electrified.
Customer Satisfaction
- The programme will provide step-free access to a minimum of 99% of the customers using the stations along the route.
- Morley and Garforth stations have already been made fully accessible.
- TransPennine Express and Northern being fully embedded into the Enterprise means they lead the customer delivery team, using a ‘plan, do, review’ approach following customer feedback.
Community Engagement
- 11,450 hours of volunteering by TRU employees for community and charitable organisations has been carried out.
- 44,500 children are being engaged with through over 570 different events.
- Development of ‘Cones’ children’s book, by author Chris Madeley, engaging young children to raise awareness of the different jobs in rail and construction.
- By programme completion, TRU will have engaged with over 100,000 young people and delivered 25,000 hours of volunteering.
- 1.4bn in social value delivered to the North, exceeding targets.
Jo Griffiths, TRU Programme Director, said:
"We launched ‘Our Guiding Compass’ to challenge the programme to integrate best-in-class sustainable development principles throughout our design and construction phases - a focus shared across the whole Enterprise.
“By adopting an Enterprise-wide approach to delivering TRU, we are already seeing benefits in supporting our customers throughout our work.
“We’ve also challenged station designs and enhancing connecting services to improve accessibility and connectivity."
Anna Humphries, TRU Head of Sustainability, said:
“TRU has been striving to be industry leading in Sustainability since 2019 and we have seen great success to date, delivering value to our local communities through extensive engagement with schools and creating employment opportunities for young people across the route.
“I and the rest of the leadership team are extremely proud of what we have delivered to date – an industry leading approach to sustainability which we are sharing back into Network Rail and across the rail and construction sectors.
“TRU has a long journey ahead, but our strategy and our partners are setting us up to deliver a sustainable railway fit for all of our communities and for the future.”
Image credit: Network Rail
