HS2, Broken Promises and Climate Consequences
By: Cited, Sealed
Tags: UK Politics, Levelling Up, North, Trains, Hs2

No expense spared for the South. No money left for the North. This isn’t “levelling up”. This is the same old story.

That’s how Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester reacted to the scrapping of the HS2 leg to Leeds. But what is HS2? And why is this such a big deal?

High-Speed Rail — A Change of Plans

HS2 is a massive project which intended to improve links between London and big Northern cities, including Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds, via high-speed rail.

HS2 has the potential to vastly improve journey times, with Birmingham to London reduced from 1h 21 to 52 minutes. Birmingham to Nottingham would take just 19 minutes.

However, it is not just about knocking minutes of journey times, as Jon Stone argues in an essay for the Independent newspaper. He explains that HS2 can vastly increase the capacity of the UK’s rail network, by building new lines designed for express trains travelling between cities. Currently, these kinds of trains have to share tracks with older, slower commuter trains. Because you can’t overtake on a train track, there has to be large gaps left in the timetable (1). Read the full, well-written article here.

The net effect of this is low capacity and inefficient running of trains is that it drives up prices. Train companies can charge high prices, knowing they will still fill the limited number of seats.

Stone argues that HS2 is a necessity if we want to solve these issues.

Yet, making the headlines recently is the government’s announcement that the Eastern leg of HS2 to Leeds will now be scrapped in favour of making improvements to existing rail services (2). This announcement sparked a big backlash from leaders in the North who believe that the government has watered down plans for the region whilst being happy to splash the cash in the South. Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer stated that “The north of England has been betrayed.” (3).

It is easy to see why these leaders are unhappy. The journey from London to Leeds currently takes 2h 13 mins, however, under the original HS2 plans it would have been reduced to 1h 21mins. With the government’s latest proposals the journey will take 1h 53 mins (4). It will also see less of the increased capacity benefits that HS2 brings.

The plan for HS2. Source: BBC

It was only back in May when the current transport secretary Grant Shapps was confirming that the high-speed link between Birmingham and Leeds would go ahead and may even be finished earlier than expected (5).

That was not true, but the government continue to defend their new plans with Shapps arguing they “will bring benefits at least a decade or more earlier” and at less cost (4).

So why exactly was the Eastern leg of HS2 scrapped?

HS2, the most ambitious infrastructure project in the UK, has always been controversial.

One of the biggest sticking points for its critics is that it is very (very) expensive. It was originally priced, in 2013, at £32.7 billion, but costs have spiralled almost every year since and in 2019 a government-commissioned review estimated final costs could reach as much as £106 billion (6).

In December 2020, the National Infrastructure Commission recommended the government should prioritise establishing rail links between cities in the North and Midlands over new projects such as HS2.

And, as mentioned above, the eastern leg was not due to be completed until 2035–2040.

These two reasons are how the government justifies the scrapping of this part of HS2 in favour of their new plans. However, ultimately the reason for why it was scrapped will depend on you ask with some people arguing it's because the government doesn’t take investment in the North as seriously as it should.

Northern Powerhouse Rail

For the North East of England, there is even more bad news for rail development. Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) is another set of proposals which initially aimed to implement a new high-speed line from Liverpool to Leeds via Manchester with multiple other links and new stations for Bradford and Warrington.

This has been cancelled (or at least significantly scaled back) with no high-speed line between Leeds and Manchester and no new stations for Bradford or Warrington.

Instead the government is focusing on improving existing lines and argues that this is the best way to prioritise improving connections whilst balancing affordability.

However, Railway Industry Association chief executive Darren Caplan has said:

It is worrying that this scheme has been scaled back. Northern Powerhouse Rail will be essential in connecting up towns and cities in the North of England

There is a particularly strong case for a new station in Bradford, Britain’s seventh largest city, with 25% of the population aged under 16 — but not yet connected on a mainline railway (7)

Undeniably the significant cut to plans, both HS2 and NPR, particularly affect the North East and its leaders may question whether this is the ‘levelling up’ they were promised by the prime minister.