In his introduction to the manifesto, Council Leader Cllr Warren Bradley, pictured above, writes:

We want our city to be at the forefront of innovation. Supporting imaginative proposals to harness the power of the Mersey and to generate 50% of our city’s energy from renewable sources. And pursuing the MAG-LEV proposals which would reduce travel time to London to just over an hour. Neither of these projects will happen tomorrow but we must work with public and private partners, with a vision to move them forward.

 

UK Ultraspeed notes in particular the linkage between maglev and another long-term initiative to significantly increase renewable power generation.  On every scale, from city-region to national, the cleaner the power, the greener maglev becomes.  

 

The Transrapid maglev system used by Ultraspeed is a step-change in environmental terms.  If powered by renewably-generated electricity, maglev is absolutely emissions free.  Even using electricity from today's UK power stations, a trip by maglev emits 10 times less CO2 than flying, but city-to-city journeys are quicker than by jet.  With 45 times less land-take than a motorway and able to operate silently in cities at up to 125mph, maglev positively enhances Britain's environment.

 

More generally, a broad consensus in favour of a radical transformation of Britain's transport is growing across the political spectrum, and maglev is setting the agenda.

 

On a regional scale, only maglev has the speed to combine two cities into a single super-city able to compete with the best in the global economy: Liverpool to Manchester or Glasgow to Edinburgh in under 15 minutes.  With a journey of only 58 minutes from Newcastle, via Teesside, Leeds and Manchester to Liverpool, maglev turns the policy aspiration for a "Northern Way' super-region into a buildable reality.

 

On a larger scale, London via the Midlands to Manchester takes under an hour.   Only maglev is fast enough to link all the major cities on both the East and West Coasts with a single route, enabling a trip from Scotland to London via the Tyne, Tees, Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham in under three hours.  By slashing journey times, UK Ultraspeed empowers the regions of the UK to compete as strongly as London and the South-East.

 

With a fully developed project finance proposition, which could see the system built with zero up-front public sector grants, Ultraspeed is setting the pace on the financial agenda too.  With the Transrapid maglev now proven in daily service, transporting millions of passengers at speeds in excess of 250mph to a timetable defined to the second, Ultraspeed looks forward to bringing the world's best public transport to Britain.