Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) president Chris Williamson has proposed a bold new plan to link nine northern cities in Britain, Scotland, Wales and Ireland through The Loop, a high-speed rail system.
The Loop high-speed train
The train line would link Dublin, Belfast, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool and Bangor in Wales, as reported by Property Week‘s sister title Architect’s Journal.
The plans – inspired by Saudi Arabia’s ambitious 170km-long mega-project The Line – are designed to establish a global city of around 10 million people, which Williamson said would be “dispersed but connected”.
Described by Williamson as a manifesto to “inspire” and “provoke”, the plan is set to tackle underfunding across the UK’s regions by creating a city “comparable with other major global cities”.
The Loop would connect Dublin, Belfast, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool and Bangor.
The proposal is a part of the Northern Powerhouse Loop vision, which would have 50m-long trains that would run at intervals of five minutes at speeds of up to 300 miles per hour on an elevated viaduct to minimise disruption at ground level.
Williamson suggested that the Northern Loop would cost £130bn to construct and would deliver £12bn a year in economic benefits.
The concept of The Loop, created in collaboration with engineering firm Elliott Wood, would mean travel from Edinburgh to Manchester would take “less time than crossing Los Angeles” and would allow people to live in Newcastle while working Glasgow.
The RIBA president has confirmed that the Northern Loop proposal has been submitted to the Royal Academy’s 2026 summer exhibition.
He said: “Maybe I have been too influenced by the scale, the vision and the ambition of The Line in Saudi Arabia, having worked on the high-speed stations running alongside the 170km city for the last few years.
“But we in the British Isles should be equally ambitious about our future. At present, the government seems to expect each city to compete for the same investment funding, when we need to encourage connectivity and collaboration.”
Williamson’s idea comes after the government’s recent push for the £45bn Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) project, which is central to investment in transport, skills and housing.
“Britain needs a vision that can excite the country, regenerate the economy and restore confidence. Architects once published manifestos. They were not always right, but they inspired, provoked and set out ideas they believed in. This project is intended as a return to that time,” he added.
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