A missed opportunity for Midlands rail connectivity
The report on HS2 connections in the East Midlands ( RAIL 906) offers a large rail upgrade programme, but on closer examination reveals a serious lack of ambition coupled with over-provision.
Nottingham is the largest city in the East Midlands, effectively the regional capital. Every other regional capital near HS2 has direct rail services to London and other HS2 destinations, so why not Nottingham?
A classic compatible service from Nottingham to Birmingham via Toton is proposed, but it’s a much longer route than necessary.
This longer route is one of many examples where HS2, rather than being the ‘backbone’ of the rail network, becomes a straitjacket that prevents optimum local connectivity being achieved.
In their truly excellent evidence to the National Infrastructure Commission, Transport for the North offers this advice: “While NPR [Northern Powerhouse Rail] builds on HS2, the form of NPR needs to be what works best for the North, not what can be fitted into current HS2 proposals.”
Midlands Connect would do well to heed this advice.
The case for linking Nottingham to London via HS2 is very strong. Nottingham has about 1.2 million London passengers per year
- more than both Chesterfield and Sheffield combined, which have two HS2 services an hour, or alternatively about two-thirds of
Leeds passenger numbers, which has three trains per hour. Greengauge 21 has proposed in
Beyond HS2 a Nottingham South connection to HS2 (presumably near East Midlands Parkway) that will deliver a Nottingham-London rail service in under an hour. This will be a massive improvement over the likely Midland Main Line electrified time of about 80 minutes or 80-90 via Toton (with a real-life interchange time at Toton).
Why has Midlands Connect not mentioned the Nottingham South HS2 connection? Has anyone in Midlands Connect read Beyond
HS2? If so, why have they not acknowledged it?
At a time when co-operation between supporters of HS2 is essential, this is a backward step. The Nottingham South HS2 connection would not only offer a 25% reduction of the Midland Connect proposed journey time between Nottingham and Birmingham via HS2, it would also enable the London to Chesterfield and Sheffield HS2 trains to serve Derby.
What really worries me is that Midlands Connect, which claims to represent the interests of Midlands rail users, appears to be putting the interests of the HS2 project above those of the people they represent and offering sub-optimal solutions which are not value for money.
The people of the Midlands deserve better from Midlands Connect and HS2. Please can we have it?
Graham Nalty, Derby
I studied the Toton HST Hub article ( RAIL 906) with mounting incredulity.
A station in the centre of a thriving city such as Derby, Leicester or Nottingham would be a real hub, fed by existing public transport routes radiating in all directions. In contrast, the Toton site would really be just another out-of-town parkway.
Malcolm Goodall, Newark