It’s time for Boris to get HS2 done
One of the exciting things about finally having a government with a strong majority and clear democratic mandate is that Britain now has an administration that can get things done. After years of stasis the country desperately needs it, and for all of Boris’s faults his optimism and his determination to run an ambitious government make him the man of the moment.
For a Boris led government, a key element of “unleashing Britain’s potential” is infrastructure and, as we have endlessly heard, Boris is a big fan of infrastructure projects. For me, this is another cause for optimism: we want to level up the north, interest rates are low, let’s get building! What better way to start than to commit to HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail?
Alas, the government is dragging its feet amid growing opposition.
In response, this week 30 MPs, including former international development secretary Andrew Mitchell, signed a joint letter calling on Boris Johnson to deliver the “long overdue” rail line in full, arguing that it will be a “key engine for growth that we must not waver from.” They also want Boris to commit to Northern Powerhouse Rail, the £39 billion east-west line linking Liverpool to Hull, which has been designed to connect with HS2. They are right, and if Boris is serious about unleashing Britain’s potential and boosting the North, he’d do well to listen to them.
Clearly, the initial costings of HS2 were inaccurate and based on faulty assumptions. Yet despite the rising costs, reports on HS2 have concluded that the project is still worth implementing. Infrastructure is not cheap – it costs money. Are passengers really going to be worrying about the cost of the line in fifty years when they are enjoying the benefits? With all this hand wringing it’s amazing that we ever get anything done.
Opponents of HS2 sneer at the cost/benefit analysis of “knocking 15 minutes off London to Birmingham”, but they miss the point. What HS2 will address is the problem of capacity and that’s the main benefit. What other solution will address this problem?
In any case, the reduced journey times are not to be sniffed at. London to Manchester would be cut from two hours to one. Birmingham to Newcastle would be cut from three hours and fifteen minutes down to just two hours. Birmingham to Nottingham would be cut to around twenty minutes. It would cut an hour from the journey time to Scotland. These reductions are significant.
The letter from the pro-HS2 MPs said that “abandoning the project would leave the north reliant on aged Victorian infrastructure.” They are right about this too: we are over reliant on Victorian era lines designed for a different time, running a mix of express intercity trains and local and commuter services that stop frequently. This is inefficient because (obviously) trains can’t overtake each other, meaning large gaps are needed in the timetable which greatly reduces capacity for all services. HS2 will free up capacity across vast areas of the country for localised services – that’s part of the point of it.
The most common argument from HS2 sceptics is that we should simply upgrade existing lines, but Network Rail dismissed this and warned that passengers would face “absurd” levels of disruption from this approach. As ever, such arguments against are superficially appealing but based on an oversimplification.
It’s time for a new, modern high-speed line based on the engineering technology of the 21st century, not the 19th. Upgrading existing lines will not address capacity issues and isn’t as simple as is often assumed. Abandoning the project, or worse, halting the line at Birmingham and betraying the north, would go against the stated aims and ambitions of this government. Come on Boris, you got Brexit done. Now get HS2 done!
Ben Kelly is a freelance writer and a regular columnist for Reaction.