HS2 cash will be used to fill potholes and refurb stations

COUNCILS in the North and the Midlands will be given the money saved from scrapping the second leg of HS2 to fill potholes and refurbish train stations, the Government has announced.

The reallocated funds, totalling £4.7billion, will be handed to local authorities to improve local transport connections. The Transport Secretary declared the investment was “game-changing”. The transport budget will be specifically targeted at smaller cities, towns and local areas in the North and the Midlands, where the majority of HS2 savings were made, and will be available from 2025.

The announcement represented “levelling up in action”, Rishi Sunak said. “This unprecedented investment will benefit more people, in more places, more quickly than HS2 ever would have done,” he added.

Local authorities will be able to use the money to build new roads, fill potholes and install better street lighting, as well refurbish bus and railway stations. The money will also be available for councils to boost the number of electric vehicle charging points.

It comes as Mr Sunak is expected to chair a regional Cabinet meeting in Yorkshire today, where he will call on ministers and MPS to hold councils to account to ensure the funding is used appropriately. The North will receive £2.5billion and the Midlands £2.2 billion, nine times higher in the sevenyear period than the amount councils currently receive for transport.

Mark Harper, the Transport Secretary, said the investment was “truly game-changing” and was “only possible because this Government has a plan to improve local transport and is willing to take tough decisions like reallocating funding from the second phase of HS2”.

Last October, Mr Sunak came under fire when he announced that the northern leg of HS2 was to be scrapped in the middle of the Tory party conference in Manchester. At the time, David Cameron, who had not yet been appointed Foreign Secretary, said the decision would “help to fuel the views of those who argue that we can no longer think or act for the long-term as a country”. Mr Sunak promised “every single penny” of £36billion previously earmarked for the scheme would be reinvested into new transport projects.

Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer is to visit a housing development in the West Midlands, as he pledges to run a “patriotic economy” fuelled by house-building. The Labour leader said the Tories’ levelling up promises are “empty”, adding: “The Tories aren’t just betting the house, they’re betting yours”. He previously promised Labour will build 1.5 million homes over five years, as well as scrapping no-fault evictions, which the Government has pledged to do by the end of this Parliament.