Here’s hoping they finally join the dots
DEAR Editor, Birmingham is reputed to be the largest city in the developed world without an underground rail network; an uncomfortable truth, but one which is unlikely to change.
If the city is ever to live comfortably with this dubious distinction, its surface-running transport infrastructure must be seen to be world class. At present it is neither sufficiently comprehensive nor of a suitable quality to impact much upon its current reputation for studied mediocrity and embarrassing inadequacy.
Tens of billions of pounds have, quite reasonably, been pledged by this government to improve the rail network in the North of England, particularly East-West connectivity, where it is lamented that some 50 per cent of journeys from Manchester and Liverpool to the great cities of Yorkshire are still made by car. Yet in the Midlands, the equivalent figure is nearly 90 per cent, so utterly useless is rail connectivity from West to East in our region.
The Government, in its rather obvious wooing of the North, seems largely unaware that rail infrastructure in the Midlands is in many respects well behind that of the North, while in its superficial and biased review: Rethinking HS2, the House of Lords select committee has contrived to discount the region altogether.
So three cheers for the Midlands Rail Hub. At two billion pounds, it is little more than is spent in London every week, but it will bring benefits out of all proportion to its modest cost.
West-East connectivity will be significantly improved, while new and additional services into the city centre will help to ensure the success and viability of HS2.
Yet will a government so used to seeing Birmingham and the Midlands as little more than an inconvenient obstacle along the South-East/North-West axis actually wake up to the needs and potential of this consistently and grossly underfunded region?
Will it now support these proposals – already several times rejected – and provide the money and impetus to see this project through to its earliest possible conclusion?
And impetus is surely needed. It makes little sense to delay the scheme for yet another five years and risk further cost escalation when it is such a significant and integral part of the High Speed Project.
The Government must now be prepared to accept that a decades-long policy of calculated underinvestment in a region of such strategic importance has turned out to be a false economy and take immediate steps to ensure that the region is effectively connected to HS2 by 2026, not seven years later.
Tony Millinger, by email