First step in the plan is construction of a new £17bn line between London and Birmingham.
The government is proposing a 'Y' shaped network linking London, the West Midlands, Manchester and Leeds, with stations in South Yorkshire and the East Midlands, and links to existing lines to enable through-running services to other cities including Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh. The government believes that the scheme would deliver £44bn of benefits and says it would cut rail journey times between London and other major cities by as much as an hour.
Fierce opposition is initially focused on the proposed London-Birmingham line. Opponents say that it is too expensive and will blight some of the most beautiful parts of the country.Just about every local authority along the 140-mile route appears to oppose the scheme, including Warwickshire and Staffordshire and Hillingdon. Aylesbury Vale District Council in Buckinghamshire has put aside £100,000 to contribute to a fighting fund. The Taxpayers Alliance has also taken up against the scheme. Numerous actions groups have also been formed to bring down the proposal.
Transport secretary Philip Hammond said: "We must invest in Britain’s future. High speed rail offers us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the way we travel in the 21st century and would help us build a modern economy fit for the future.
"Countries across Europe and Asia are already pressing ahead with ambitious plans for high speed rail, while some of our key rail arteries are getting ever closer to capacity. We cannot afford to be left behind - investing in high speed rail now is vital to the prosperity of future generations."
The project is being developed by government-owned company HS2 Ltd, set up for this purpose. The vision for the scheme is to bring Birmingham within 49 minutes of London, and Manchester and Leeds within 80 minutes or less. Birmingham and Manchester would be less than 50 minutes apart and Leeds and Birmingham just over an hour. Travel from London to Scotland’s major cities would take around 3 hours 30 minutes. Running 14 or more trains per hour, each with up to 1,100 seats and offering much higher levels of reliability than the existing network, high speed rail could shift as many as 6 million air trips and 9 million road trips a year on to rail.
The government also claims that with long-distance services transferred to the new high speed network, large amounts of space would be freed up on the West Coast, East Coast and Midland Main Lines, allowing for an expansion of commuter, regional and freight services on these lines.
The government estimates the cost of the complete 'Y' shaped network to be £32bn and expects it to generate economic benefits of around £44bn and fare revenues of around £27bn over a 60-year period. The proposed network would be delivered in two phases - the first a line from London to the West Midlands, and the second the onward legs to Manchester and Leeds.
A direct link to Britain's existing high speed line, High Speed 1, which runs from London St Pancras to the Channel Tunnel, is also proposed as part of the initial phase of the scheme, to allow travel from cities linked to the high speed network to the continent. Construction of a direct link to Heathrow airport – which, under the proposals, would be built at the same time as lines from Birmingham to Leeds and Manchester - would enable direct high speed services to run to and from the airport, providing an attractive alternative to many short-haul air journeys and bringing central Birmingham within an hour of Heathrow, and Manchester and Leeds within around 70 and 75 minutes respectively.
In December 2010, the government announced its proposed route for the first phase of a high speed line between London and the West Midlands. The consultation which begins today is both on that proposed route and the government's strategy for a wider network. The consultation will run until 29 July and events will take place in towns and cities along the 140-mile proposed route between London and the West Midlands, as well as in major cities across the country.
The government hopes to begin construction sometime after 2015, with the line to the West Midlands completed by 2026 and the legs to Manchester and Leeds finished in 2032-2033.
The proposed route
The government's proposed network would be built in phases. Phase 1 would comprise an initial London-Birmingham line including a direct link to High Speed One (HS1). This would run from a rebuilt Euston station to a new Birmingham City Centre station at Curzon Street. A Crossrail interchange station would be built at Old Oak Common in West London, providing direct connections to: the West End, City and Docklands via Crossrail; to the South West and Wales via the Great Western Main Line; and to Heathrow via the Heathrow Express.
A second interchange station would be constructed where the line of the route passes the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) and Birmingham Airport close to Junction 6 of the M42. It would offer direct links to Birmingham Airport, the National Exhibition Centre and the M6 and M42. A direct link to HS1 would be provided in tunnel from Old Oak Common to the existing North London Line, from where existing infrastructure can be used to reach the HS1 line north of St Pancras.
Phase 2 would see the new high speed line running on to Manchester and separately to Leeds. HS2 Ltd is currently engaged in detailed planning work for options for these routes, including stations in the East Midlands and South Yorkshire, as well as for a spur link to Heathrow. Connections on to the existing West and East Coast main lines would also be included, allowing direct high speed train services to be operated to cities including Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle and Liverpool. Further consideration will also be given to extending the network subsequently to these and other major destinations.
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