Transport Secretary Justine Greening today gave the go-ahead to the Government’s controversial national high-speed rail network, HS2, saying it would act as a rail "motorway" and would carry a lower environmental impact than originally planned.
Greening said the £32.7 billion
HS2 rail scheme, which won’t be fully completed until 2033, will provide vital new capacity and faster journeys to rail passengers and bring substantial economic benefits to the Britain. But she failed to assuage opposition to the project by
environmental groups, despite announcing that 55 per cent of the first phase of the rail scheme –running between London and Birmingham – would be underground. HS2 runs through 13 miles of the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and, today, Greening announced that less than two miles will now be at or above surface level.
But Friends of the Earth said the current plans didn’t go far enough to cut
carbon emissions and the money spent on HS2 would be better spent on improving local trains and bus services and on creating jobs and growth in the solar industry, for example.
HS2, which will be constructed in two phases, will connect up London with the cities of Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield and the East Midlands. High speed trains on the network will carry up to 26,000 people each hour and travel at speeds of up to 250 miles per hour, cutting rail travel times dramatically. Birmingham to London journeys will be almost halved from one hour 24 minutes to 45 minutes, while there’s even the prospect of journeys from Paris to Manchester taking as little as three and half hours to complete.
Rail "motorway"
The Department for Transport (DfT) said HS2 would effectively act as a
rail "motorway" network offering greater capacity and speed and bringing high-speed rail services to cities and towns far beyond the HS2 network.
It estimates it will take nine million journeys off the road network and cut up to 4.5 million air journeys each year, while it has calculated the benefit cost ratio of the scheme will be £1.80 to £2.50 for every £1 spent. Over a 60-year period, HS2 Ltd estimates a national high speed rail network would generate a value of up to £59 billion.
Environmental impactBut those opposing HS2 claim the economic benefits of the project have been overstated and the environmental costs of the project have not been properly evaluated. An environmental impact assessment into HS2 shows it will be broadly neutral in carbon terms because of the scale of the infrastructure programme and the number of new journeys it will create.
Yesterday, the Countryside Alliance warned it could have a "devastating impact" on the countryside and to hundreds of thousands of people that will b affected along the route.
"At present the costs of HS2 – both to the environment and the public purse – are simply too great to justify going ahead with the scheme, and the Countryside Alliance therefore urges the Government to reconsider the impact that High Speed Rail will have on Britain’s countryside and rural communities before taking this decision,’ Sarah Lee, head of Policy for the Countryside Alliance, said.
Today, Greening said she had given careful consideration before approving the scheme, but said the benefits of the scheme outweighed the costs.
"No amount of tinkering with our Victorian rail infrastructure will deliver this leap in capacity," she said.
Line changes
Greening said she delayed her decision to approve the rail network in order to mitigate against its environmental impact by making 79 miles of the London to Birmingham line go through tunnels.
"It means more than half the entire 140-mile line will be out of sight in tunnels or cuttings. I am certain this strikes the right balance between the reasonable concerns of people living on or near the line, who will be offered a generous compensation package, and the need to keep Britain moving," she said.
The DfT said today’s go-ahead follows one of the largest public consultation exercises ever undertaken. The first phase of the scheme will be constructed by 2026. The DfT said a formal consultation on second phase routes will begin in early 2014 with a final route chosen by the end of 2014.
Like this story? Please subscribe to our free weekly e-newsletter at the top of the page for more content like this.
Related content:
