Don’t let Dominic Cummings axe eastern leg of HS2 through Leeds and Sheffield – Andrew Adonis

DOMINIC Cummings is considering axing the eastern leg of HS2 serving Leeds, Sheffield, Nottingham and Derby.
Work is already underway on the first leg of HS2 between London and Birmingham.Work is already underway on the first leg of HS2 between London and Birmingham.
Work is already underway on the first leg of HS2 between London and Birmingham.

This would be devastating for Yorkshire. The right policy is to build HS2 faster to the North, not stop it in Birmingham.

Cummings has never liked HS2 and tried to get Boris Johnson to cancel the whole thing after last December’s election. His reasons aren’t coherent.

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He dislikes ‘big state’ projects and claims high-speed rail is ‘yesterday’s technology’. Yet he also says he is favour of an upgraded east-west rail line from Liverpool to Newcastle, across the Pennines, which is an equally big state project using the same technology.

An artist's impression of a HS2 station.An artist's impression of a HS2 station.
An artist's impression of a HS2 station.

In truth the Prime Minister’s chief advisor is a contrarian who, on principle, dislikes policies which previously enjoyed cross-party support like HS2 (and membership of the European Union).

He is also a right-wing Tory who, if there has to be transport investment, would prefer it to go on roads for ‘individualist’ cars and trucks rather than on ‘collectivist’ railways.

Oh, and it is the oldest trick in the book to oppose an existing policy (HS2) with a gleam in the eye which will take years to develop (the new Liverpool to Newcastle railway). Yorkshire needs both better north-south and east-west rail links, but the one won’t be advanced by cancelling the other.

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Johnson rejected Cummings’s advice to cancel HS2 outright in February and gave the green light to the first phase between London and Birmingham. This first phase got Parliamentary consent three years ago and more than £8bn had already been spent. Cancelling it would have been hard to square with the Tory narrative of ‘levelling up’ – in the Midlands, at least.

Boris Johnson and the Cabinet gave their backing to HS2 earlier this year.Boris Johnson and the Cabinet gave their backing to HS2 earlier this year.
Boris Johnson and the Cabinet gave their backing to HS2 earlier this year.

Johnson was under pressure from Andy Street, the Tory mayor of the West Midlands, whose whole economic strategy for the region depends on transformed connectivity. HS2 is central to this, trebling transport capacity north and south from Birmingham and – if HS2 is completed through to London, Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds – giving journey times of barely half an hour to each of these four great metropolitan cities.

I have suggested to Andy Street, perfectly seriously, that the new HS2 station at Birmingham International should be named ‘UK Central’ when it opens later this decade. It is next to all of Birmingham Airport, the National Exhibition Centre, the existing 
West Coast Main Line and a set of motorways.

It is equally important that Yorkshire and the East Midlands are seen as part of ‘UK Central’, which depends upon HS2 being completed through to Leeds, Sheffield and the proposed junction station at Toton, midway between Derby and Nottingham.

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If it takes half an hour to get from London to Birmingham by HS2, but two hours to get from London to Sheffield, Leeds and York on the old Victorian railway – you don’t need to be a genius to see where businesses and traders will concentrate.

Andrew Adonis was Transport Secretary in Gordon Brown's government and is the founder of HS2.Andrew Adonis was Transport Secretary in Gordon Brown's government and is the founder of HS2.
Andrew Adonis was Transport Secretary in Gordon Brown's government and is the founder of HS2.

London and Birmingham are already the UK’s two largest cities: a truncated HS2 will reinforce their dominance at the expense of the North.

Yorkshire and the North East will suffer especially, because it is highly unlikely that the extension of HS2 north-west from Birmingham to Manchester will be cancelled.

Legislation to extend HS2 from Birmingham to Crewe is already
before Parliament and is likely to 
become law in the autumn. This makes ultimate completion of the line to Manchester almost certain, whereas
no legislation has yet been tabled to
take the line north-east from Birmingham.

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An idea being considered by No 10 is to link Leeds to HS2 via Manchester, as part of the possible east-west line across the North.

This is second best ‘jam tomorrow’ 
for Leeds in its connectivity to London, since this route will be significantly slower than via the direct eastern leg of HS2.

To have to go from Leeds to London via Manchester would institutionalise the subordinate status of West Yorkshire. 
But for Sheffield and South Yorkshire 
it would be worse still, with no HS2 at
all.

Decisions taken on HS2 in the next year will affect the future of Yorkshire, maybe for centuries. The county should not take no for an answer.

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Lord Adonis is a former Transport Secretary and the creator of HS2.

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