Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced that the rest of HS2 will be scrapped, dropping the Northern leg between Birmingham and Manchester, seeing many angry reactions from leaders in the region.
HS2 costs are instead set to be allocated to build Network North – to drive better connectivity across the North and Midlands with faster journey times, increased capacity and more frequent services across rail, buses and roads – and fund transport projects across the country.
Rail, roads and buses are to benefit from £36 billion in transport improvements, and a further £12bn is to be set aside to deliver fast links between Liverpool and Manchester.
The Government is to deliver HS2 between Euston in central London and the West Midlands as planned, with a station at Old Oak Common and Birmingham Interchange and branches to central Birmingham and Handsacre, near Lichfield – where HS2 trains for Manchester, Liverpool and Scotland will join the West Coast Main Line.
The Government has said £9.6 billion will be reinvested in the Midlands:
- Funding the Midlands Rail Hub in full with £1.75 billion
- Over £1.5 billion guaranteed local transport funding for the new East Midlands Mayor
- Over £1 billion extra local transport funding for West Midlands City Region
- A new £2.2 billion fund for local transport across all areas in the West and East Midlands outside the city regions – smaller cities, counties, towns and countryside
- Reopened train lines and new stations
- The number of trains between Leicester and Birmingham will be doubled from 2 to 4 per hour
- £100 million will be shared across the North and Midlands to support the development and rollout of London-style contactless and smart ticketing
- Funding to fix 2 major pinch points on the A5 between Hinckley and Tamworth. Funding will also be provided for improvements to the A50/500 corridor between Stoke and Derby, cutting congestion for the 90,000 drivers who use the road each day and ensuring smoother journeys for drivers and freight around Rolls-Royce, Toyota, Magna Park and other major local employers
- A Midlands Road Fund worth nearly £650 million will be launched for new road schemes
- A further £250 million will fully fund 10 smaller road schemes in the Midlands, including the A509 Isham Bypass, near Kettering, and the A43 between Northampton and Kettering
- £2.2 billion for the Midlands to combat potholes
- £230 million will be invested in increasing the frequency of bus services in the Midlands and the £2 bus fare will also be extended until the end of December 2024.
Reacting to the news, East Midlands Chamber Chief Executive Scott Knowles said: “Businesses in the East Midlands are exasperated at the HS2 saga that has been playing out for over a decade now and this latest embarrassing U-turn is another nail in the coffin for the Government’s levelling up mantra, which shows little sign of arriving in our region.
“While lots of the discussion today will be about the impact on Manchester and other parts of the North, the East Midlands continues to be bottom of the pile when it comes to public transport investment.
“Much like the trains travelling on our Victorian rail infrastructure, we find ourselves once again at a standstill, far away from the destination we want to reach and with next to no idea how we’re supposed to get there.
“Rail in our region has been a political hot potato for decades – we are still waiting for Midland Main Line electrification to be delivered and plans for the HS2 Eastern Leg were scaled back in the Integrated Rail Plan, resulting in areas like Chesterfield, Staveley and Toton losing out on significant economic regeneration benefits.
“At a time when we need to demonstrate to the rest of the world that we’re a country with big ambition, there is instead a complete inability to deliver major infrastructure projects, as the chopping and changing of Government administrations is reflected in policy indecision.
“The East Midlands is a world-class producer of products. This demands a world-class transport infrastructure to get these goods and services across the country, and around the globe.
“This announcement damages confidence and has real-world impacts in terms of job creation and business investment, not to mention job retention among the numerous East Midlands businesses that play a key role in the HS2 supply chain.
“Government is failing one of its basic principles – to use economic policy that creates an environment in which business can thrive, invest and create jobs. Forget levelling up – it feels like we are being levelled down in the East Midlands. Again.”
Sir John Peace, chairman of Midlands Connect, said: “We are disappointed and disheartened by the HS2 announcement.
“We must not start from scratch, we must work at pace to deliver HS2 Phase 1 all the way to Euston. There are also lessons to be learnt from the HS2 story so far.
“The Midlands Rail Hub and road programmes including the A5 which have been announced today resonate with us, these are our transformational East-West priorities for the region, which we recommended and have been progressing with Government.
“We are now calling for more detail on timescales and plan of action, and asking for a high-level urgent meeting with ministers, to ensure these plans and the benefits for the Midlands are delivered as quickly as possible.
“We will now work, like we always do, cross-party and in an open and collaborative way with all involved.”
Rain Newton-Smith, CBI Chief Executive, said: “The UK has incredible strengths as a destination for investment. When global boardrooms weigh up investment opportunities, the UK was always seen as a safe harbour due to our reputation for reliability. But the decision to cancel the rest of the HS2 project sends a damaging signal about the UK’s status as global destination for investment. “Businesses and investors in the Midlands and the North have spent the last decade planning for the delivery of HS2. The commitment to invest in a new Network North programme of transport projects promises much needed investment to the region. But a ‘start from scratch’ approach risks leaving those businesses in a holding pattern of poor connectivity and low productivity whilst those projects are scoped, prepped and finally delivered.”
Malcolm Prentice, chairman of Midlands rail depot maintenance firm MTMS, said: “HS2 wasn’t just about offering faster passenger train times, it was about freeing up the infrastructure to increase the capacity on our rail system for freight, because we can’t live with what we’ve got.
“Mr Sunak talks about digitalisation and modernisation, but while that will make a difference, it won’t allow the network to take on heavy volume and so this is a sticking plaster, not a solution to the capacity challenges that we are facing.
“It’s hugely disappointing, but if we are now going to develop and Midlands and Northern network then it should at least be a British project with British suppliers drawn from the same areas to avoid it further widening the North-South divide.”
Mr Prentice, who has more than 40 years’ experience of working in the rail industry, also took aim at the Conservative party’s own politicians whose inability to deliver HS2 has led to it having to be scaled back.
He said: “Mr Sunak stood there and talked about the project having been mismanaged and mis-delivered, but that has all been on the Conservative Government’s watch and many of the people in the room were responsible for that.
“Instead of standing there clapping and whooping, they should stood there hanging their heads in embarrassment.
“It seems that everybody who has got involved in HS2 has been more interested in their own self-interest and until the Government change the way these big projects are managed, any new rail project that comes along will have the same outcome.”
