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UK government commits to 'accelerating next stage of HS2', says expert


The UK's planned national high speed rail line would reach the north of England by 2027, six years earlier than previously announced, under updated plans published by the government.

Sir David Higgins who chairs HS2 Ltd, the company set up to deliver the planned project, first recommended extending the first phase of High Speed 2 (HS2) to a new transport hub at Crewe in his report to the government in March 2014. The Department for Transport (DfT) has now published its plans for 'HS2 Phase 2a' between Birmingham and Crewe, as well as a consultation on 'compensation and assistance' plans for property owners along the confirmed route.

Transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin described the proposals for Crewe as "a tremendous opportunity for the north to feel the benefits [of HS2] even sooner".

"Cities across the North West and Scotland will gain much needed additional rail capacity and faster services, helping support growth and deliver jobs," he said.

"We continue to make good progress on our plans for the rest of HS2 Phase Two serving Manchester, East Midlands, South Yorkshire and Leeds and will make a decision on the route in autumn 2016," he said.

Transport expert Jonathan Hart of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said that the published plans "put more flesh on the bones of previous announcements about accelerating the next stage of HS2".

"Policymakers are sometimes accused of running before they can walk," he said. "At present, given the progress of the Hybrid Bill in parliament, there is yet no green light for getting HS2 to Birmingham, let alone Crewe, Manchester or Leeds."

"There is an awful lot of detail in this paper: station locations; the status of Transport for the North (TfN); the vexed question of maximising bang for buck connectivity for the network as a whole. There is a lot to do, but at least this latest DfT publication helps keep the momentum going," he said.

Under current plans, HS2 is to be built in two stages. The initial London to Birmingham section of the line is due for completion in 2026 while a proposed second phase, connecting the line to Manchester and Leeds, would follow by 2033. The High Speed Rail (London to West Midlands) Bill, which is currently before parliament, will give the government powers to construct and operate the first phase of the line once it completes its parliamentary passage.

The government has committed itself to delivering the full 'y-shaped' HS2 network serving Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield in its entirety. It confirmed that allocation of £55.7 billion in public funding to the project, which includes contingency funding and funding for rolling stock, as part of the 2015 Spending Review.

As set out in the government's new paper, 'phase 2a' of HS2 will run between Fradley in the West Midlands to a new hub station at Crewe. This new station could either be situated close to the existing station site or at Basford, which is two kilometres south of the existing station. It would not be possible merely to upgrade the existing station due to the track layout, which "was not designed for today's operational demands nor those of the future", according to the paper. The government intends to do this through a separate hybrid Bill.

Separately, HS2 Ltd has published a 'Yorkshire Hub' report, setting out the recommendations of Sir David Higgins for a new hub station in Leeds as part of HS2 Phase Two. Higgins has recommended integrating Leeds' HS2 station into its existing mainline station, after Leeds City Council and local businesses raised concerns about the quality of proposed links between the existing station and a new HS2 hub.

The government announced this weekend that John Cridland, former director-general of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), had been appointed as the first chair of TfN. TfN is the partnership between northern local transport authorities, government and the national transport agencies created to oversee transport investment in the north of England.

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