Opening up historic railway lines is our route to prosperity
NEWS of the scrapping of the eastern HS2 leg between Birmingham and Leeds and the shelving of the muchvaunted Northern Powerhouse Rail trans-Pennine programme has been greeted with howls of anger from Red Wall Tories and Labour alike.
But upgrading existing train links between major cities in the North and Midlands will do more for levelling up Britain than the billions spent on HS2.
Ministers believe this “make do and mend” strategy will make it far quicker to build and cut costs for the network over the next two decades.
Investment of £96billion announced this week by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps will halve train times between key cities, with a journey from Birmingham to Nottingham being cut from 72 minutes to just 27 minutes.
This common sense decision will put the emphasis back on improving connections between regional cities rather than focusing solely on high-speed journeys to and from London. Improved interconnectivity will do more to bring prosperity to deprived areas than HS2 draining away talent to the capital.
It chimes perfectly with a recent shift back to rail as a more cost-effective way to deliver goods. With driver shortages set to endure for months, supermarkets are beating empty shelves and higher costs by shifting to freight trains.
TESCO is on target to move 90,000 containers by rail in 2021 compared with 65,000 last year. So-called “booze trains” run every Sunday, ensuring some 4.5 million bottles of wine reach our tables by Christmas. From the port of Tilbury, trains take it to a depot in Daventry, Northants, where it is sent on to supermarkets. Replacing trucks with trains is better for the consumer and the environment.
HS2 has been controversial from the start, with costs rocketing to more than £100billion so far and only the London to Birmingham line set to be complete by 2029 at the earliest.
Outrage at the ballooning price and the environmental damage of cutting through countryside, felling trees and demolishing homes, made the Government think twice about pushing on with the full project.
“We want to make sure we get trains to Leeds in a way that actually benefits people on the network,” Mr Shapps said last month. “Not blindly follow some plan invented 15 to 20 years ago which no longer benefits people.”
By scrapping the Birmingham to Leeds line, the Government can better target upgrades that will deliver practical results for local businesses – and not upset residents and voters in areas set to be ripped up by HS2.
The intended travel time reductions will be dramatic, with trips from Birmingham to Manchester taking 40 minutes rather than the present 90 minutes. Travel from Leeds to Sheffield will be slashed from 42 to 24 minutes.
Such reduced commuter distances will encourage workers to seek jobs in the Midlands and the North, keeping money in these regions rather than seeing it leach away to London.
It’ll also get them out of cars that, at present, make up 90 per cent of daily journeys in this part of the UK.
By using existing rail lines, improved times will be delivered years earlier than constructing a new branch of HS2.
Routes axed after the Beeching Report and other recommendations in the 1960s and 70s will be restored, including the Don Valley line linking Stocksbridge and Sheffield in Yorkshire. It’s not just Red Wall constituencies that will benefit.
Neglected for 50 years, the Dartmoor line with 11 miles of new track will link Okehampton with Exeter and beyond to London. It will enable tourists to escape the traditional holiday traffic jams of the A30 between Devon and Cornwall.
SUCH a common sense attitude may also see other historic routes revived, such as the Portishead line near Bristol and the Northumberland route connecting Blyth to Newcastle upon Tyne. Designed primarily for mining and other industries, these tracks can now deliver visitors to beauty spots, encouraging local businesses.
In the service of a car-driven modernity in the 20th century, our magnificent Victorian railway heritage has long been ignored and allowed to decay. Boris Johnson is now perfectly in tune with changing times in the 21st century that need less cars and better public transport.
By side-stepping the HS2 money-pit and reviving traditional routes, we can benefit from an improved rail network.
If that is what “levelling up” means it is a better use of taxpayers’ money, delivering value for decades to come.
‘By using existing lines, improved times will be delivered years earlier’