Lord Berkeley questions HS2’s need and scope

The former deputy chairman of the Oakervee Review into HS2 is questioning whether there will be sufficient demand to justify the new high-speed railway.

In an update published on February 1, Lord Berkeley says he can find nobody who thinks demand for long-distance rail travel will increase to the extent that HS2 is still needed. He asks: “Why is it still going ahead?”

Berkeley questions whether Euston’s HS2 station will need the ten platforms for which the DfT has recently asked HS2 Ltd to develop options. He argues that it will be unlikely that trains running on Phase 2b will need to use it at all, and that they could use King’s Cross or St Pancras instead.

He suggests six platforms could be sufficient at Euston, and that the station at Old Oak Common could provide enough capacity.

And with Crossrail 2 paused (Berkeley says it was regarded as essential for distributing HS2 passengers from Euston), he asks whether the railway needs to serve Euston at all.

On development at the site, he also examines whether

Euston needs increased oversite development, claiming that remote working will result in lower demand for new offices.

He says the recent National Infrastructure Commission report, which suggested that regional links could bring higher benefits to cities in the Midlands and the North than HS2, “should provide encouragement to regional leaders to get together, put aside politics and agree one solution, phased and affordable, to bring the earliest improvements, by starting with shovel-ready projects and developing others to provide a balanced improvement to the quality and flexibility for customers of rail across the regions at the earliest opportunity”.

Berkeley also cites the remarks of NIC Chairman Sir John Armitt CBE at the All-Party Parliamentary Rail Group on January 26, when challenged about the NIC report’s failure to prioritise HS2 Phase 2b.

Armitt said: “You will have to make a choice. You can have regional upgrades, or you can have the rest of HS2 2b, but I cannot see Government agreeing to both.”