‘Calamitous job losses’ if HS2 is axed, warn bosses

BORIS JOHNSON was warned this weekend that axeing the controversial HS2 rail project would be ‘calamitous’ and cost 10,000 jobs.

In a strongly-worded letter, more than 40 rail and construction bosses warned the Prime Minister that dumping the £88 billion project would have a ‘devastating impact’ on their industries and torpedo the Government’s aim of narrowing the North-South divide.

The future of HS2, a 250 mph rail line linking London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, hangs in the balance, with a Government decision on whether to proceed, scale back or cancel the scheme due to be announced next month.

The Mail on Sunday last week revealed how Andrew Gilligan, the PM’s transport adviser, has been lobbying newly-elected Tory MPs to support the cancellation of the phase one Birmingham to London leg.

The letter voices ‘deep alarm’ at the prospect of HS2 being axed and highlights how the number of people working on it is due to grow from 10,000 to 15,000 by the end of this year, and eventually to 30,000.

‘Were HS2 to be cancelled, job losses would be calamitous, as would the missed opportunity to train and upskill the next generation of young people who will deliver the future infrastructure and rolling stock projects that the Government is ambitious to complete,’ the letter warns.

Scrapping a project so far advanced would be ‘unprecedented in the history of British construction’ and the cost of other big schemes would rise because firms would have to factor in the risk of them also being cancelled.

‘To put it as clearly as possible, future infrastructure projects will cost the Government more, should HS2 be cancelled at this stage,’ says the letter.

Signatories include Jim Brewin, UK head of Hitachi Rail; Matt Byrne, UK president of Bombardier Transportation; and Mike Haigh, executive chairman of engineering giant Mott MacDonald.