Member Article

Plans for High Speed Rail backed by MPs

MPs have backed plans to build a HS2 high-speed rail link between London and Birmingham.

According to the BBC, the report by the Commons Transport Committee say the £32 billion scheme must also be extended to Leeds and Manchester.

However, opponents believe this latest report has left HS2 “in tatters” because the economic benefits of the scheme are unclear.

The new scheme will cut the journey time between London and Birmingham to 49 minutes, but this has come with a number of conditions. As well as firmly committing to extending the scheme to other areas, MPs also called for serious and constructive debate on the topic, and deemed it “unacceptable and counter productive”, if cuts were made to rail investment elsewhere.

Louise Ellman, the Labour chair of the committee believes the scheme will provide a “step change” in the frequency of services between cities, and could be a catalyst for economic growth.

However, she called on the government to do more to promote local and region growth strategies to ensure it had the maximum economic benefits.

The plan for high speed rail have been met with a divided response. Noise, CO2 and the route of the railway have all come under debate, and MPs have also been accused of not considering the full impact of the plans on the countryside.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .