MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS

4 Monday, 25 November 2013

Will HS2 bridge the

A new way of travel: The proposed design of a High Speed Rail 2 train. (Press Association)
AS the hybrid bill for the highspeed rail system goes before
Parliament, one of the arguments used is that HS2 will improve North-South relations.
In phase two of the controversial 42.6 billion project, travel
between Manchester and London will be reduced to a journey
time of 1 hour. But will this reduce the differences between
the North and the South?
As the government debates the
economic benefit gained by
HS2, the economic gulf between
the North and the South remains
wide.

Workers
Labour candidate for Pendle,
Yvonne Tennant argues that the
North will lose more workers
due to easier commuting.
She said: A lot of money is
going into HS2 with very little
benefit. The result will only be

By Dan McLaughlin

gers a day potentially offloading the strain from the

current
system.
that more people are going to
HS2
is
to act as heart bycommute to London, and the
pass for the clogged arteries
North will be losing workers.
Again and again, all the bene- of our transport system, acfits are going to the South, and cording to Secretary of State
for Transport, Patrick
the gap continues to
McLoughlin (inset).
widen exponentially.
The Conservative MP
Contrary to prior
said:
Since 1970 the
belief, the world
total distance we travel
does not revolve
in Britain has more or
around the South
less
doubled.
of England and
In coming decades
like a tree growing
that travel will go up
under the shadow
again.
Because there
of a larger tree, we
should be no doubt - the
will be bereft of sunlight
world is going to travel more.
and start to shrink.
Without the capacity proThe current rail system is curvided
by HS2 the main road
rently working at over-capacity:
with 14% of morning commuters and rail lines linking eight of
our 10 largest cities will quite
in Manchester unable to get a
train seat. The new rail system simply be overwhelmed.
Leader of Manchester City
will cater for 300,000 passen-

Council, Sir Richard Leese,

supports this. He said:
The only cost-effective way
of preventing our current road
and rail networks creaking at
the steam is through a new
network that gives far better
value for money and for more
extra capacity than any other
road or rail option.

Economic Benefits
Although the economy is London-centric, 70% of the 15 billion per annum benefits will go
to cities outside of the South
East (KPMG).
The government claims that
the rail link could create 40,000
jobs. However, they have
backed down with their predictions in the economic gains.
The new hybrid bill highlights
that their predictions have
fallen from 2.50 to 2.30 in

MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS

Monday, 25 November 2013 5

divide?
Alternatives?

benefits for every pound

spent.
The budget for HS2 is 42.6
billion, although this does not
include the cost of the trains,
which is a further 7.5 billion.
An investment perhaps sour
on the lips of Salford City
Council who have recently
have received 75 million
cuts, and axed 1200 jobs. If
the North-South divide was to
be closed, should the debts be
cleared first?
Rt Hon Patrick McLoughlin
said that HS2 will pay for itself in jobs and prosperity it
will create.
Conversely, a spokeswoman
from HS2 argued that the rail
link with revitalise the network and redraw the economic map.
By providing connectivity
and capacity, HS2 will support

British business, both regionally and nationally.

We have the opportunity to
redraw the economic map,
and strengthen our society by
better connecting the communities in which we live.
But is this in reflection to the
recent events regarding the
new rail system? During the
Prime Ministers visit to
China, the Premier Li Keqiang announced that he
wanted to invest in the project
thus making it billions of
pounds cheaper.
In business, it is imperative
to assume that any trade missions are done with vested interest. Will China gain
financially from their contribution to HS2? And how will this
affect the benefits for the
North of England?

Phase two of HS2, to be completed by 2022/2023, expands

upon linking London to Birmingham in phase one, to linking
London with Manchester and
Leeds. Through these plans, it
would seem that London remains the hierarchy in England
but what of linking Northern
cities to one another?
Yvonne Tennant believes that
the money invested should be
used for better links to communities closer to home.
Mrs Tennant said: We need
to look after our smaller services and make them more efficient.
What is the use of chopping
up our countryside if we can
just improve on something that
is already there?
In my constituency, people
are finding it difficult to travel
from Burnley to Manchester.
For a 30 mile journey, it takes
just under two hours under the
current system which is
ridiculous.
The investment into the High
Speed 2 rail system, however,
does not mean the government
will neglect other services. It is
estimated that between 2014
and 2019, the Department for
Transport will be putting 37.5
billion into the current rail system and 24 billion into improvement on the roads, with
400 miles of extra lanes being
added to the motorways.

Those people are

plain wrong.
History shows it.
Another alternative arises
from the fact that travel may
become less essential due to
the progression of technology.
UK-wide high speed broadband
could be more beneficial, as
meetings and business transaction can be conducted remotely.
The Secretary of State for
Transport has dismissed critics
who claim broadband is a more
worthy investment than HS2.
He argued: Those people are
plain wrong. History shows it.

The invention of the telegram

didnt stop the railway revolution. The invention of the telephone didnt stop the car or
the airplane.
And the invention of the
smartphone has been accompanied by a doubling of rail
travel in Britain in just over a
decade.
They are indisputable facts.
As our economy changes and
strengthens people will move
more - not less.

The Future
The Hybrid Bill facing parliament is effectively planning
permission for HS2. This is
not the final hurdle for the
project, which has to be
scruntinised by The Public
Accounts Committee and The
Transport Select Committee
in the near future.
The North-South divide is
based on the gulf between
economic and cultural differences, where the two regions
are almost separate entities.
The argument that faster
travel will help aid the healing
of those differences is perhaps a bit naive.
Infrastructure has always
been in place to travel between the two fairly flexibly;
and HS2 will only reduce the
time by an hour.
The question arises whether
or not the HS2 aims to provide a two-way journey: will
the South visit the North?
In its descriptions, HS2 is
there to accomodate travel
between Manchester and
Leeds, or Birmingham, to
London; never London to
Manchester.
So, will HS2 bridge the gap
between the North-South divide?
With both critics and supporters, that simply cannot be
decided until the work is finished and the HS2 operates.
One certainty is that it will
continue to be controversial,
and this will not be the last
time we hear debate surrounding the project.