Spending on rail when our road network is a snarling ruin

From: Howard Cox, Founder, FairFuelUK.

IT’S staring everyone in the face – freeing up our motoring economy will benefit the environment and massively boost the economy. Yet the Government is to spend over £100bn getting to Birmingham 20 minutes quicker by rail, generating a quarter of the economic benefit that spending the same amount on new roads across the UK would deliver.

Despite 90 per cent of all journeys taken by road, rail travel receives nine times more investment. And with our road network such a snarling, constipated ruin, we wonder why pollution is at record levels?

From: Beckie Hart, CBI regional director.

COMPLETING HS2 will be a shot in the arm for businesses and communities across the country.

It’s vital we lift our aspirations and commit to Yorkshire and the Humber by using this project to unlock their economic potential.

The costs of not building HS2 are far higher in communities that have been left behind – with commuter trains filled to capacity and businesses struggling to grow. HS2 is key to tackling the productivity gap and helping the regions level up. Government should listen to the regional demand for HS2, and back it, build it, and benefit from it.

From: Dan Fell, Chief Executive, Doncaster Chamber.

THE South is not being asked to pick between HS2, Crossrail and investment in existing railways. It is not enough to offer the North only some of the pieces of the jigsaw. The North needs HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail and projects such as a railway station at Doncaster Sheffield Airport. If we want to connect businesses and people to opportunities, it is important that all of these projects – and many more – are delivered.

Endless policy paralysis and reversing previously made decisions will inevitably take its toll. This indecision must stop and Government must move at pace to deliver its promised investment in the North’s railways.

From: Keith Punshon, Willow Bridge Lane, Dalton, Thirsk.

WITH the latest projected costs of HS2 accelerating faster than the trains, one wonders if the Commission producing the figures is also working on Big Ben for January 31? The nation outside Watford needs greater rail capacity to flourish and the skills needed for great projects need retaining and nurturing.