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Lord's comments boost campaign for high-speed rail
TRANSPORT Secretary Lord Adonis last night gave campaigners a major boost by declaring high-speed rail as "the project about which I am most passionate", while a key adviser warned failing to build a line north of the Midlands was not "a very sensible thing" to do.
Lord Adonis admitted the Government has been "too slow" in switching onto 225mph lines which are already commonplace across the continent and could slash journey times for passengers from the region to the capital.
His comments offers encouragement to the campaign for high-speed lines to link Yorkshire with London, rather than
simply stopping in the Midlands as ministers had initially proposed.
Sir David Rowlands, the man in charge of the high-speed project, also made clear he wants the line to be extended further north and told MPs it made no economic or travel sense to build the rapid line only to the Midlands.
He suggested he will encourage the Government to tear up their initial proposals – which only promised a first phase to Rugby and consideration of extensions north – and go ahead with at least one line further north.
Sir David told the Commons transport committee: "We will produce a detailed analysis and proposition for the West Midlands and an outline business case for the stretches beyond that to Scotland. And we think it likely that some of the business case for the West Midlands may be dependent on actually building further north."
The Government's attitude towards high-speed has warmed markedly since Lord Adonis's arrival as a transport minister last year, leading to then-Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon setting up High Speed 2 – the company headed by Sir David – to draw up plans for the line to the Midlands and consider the case for extending a network further north.
But the comments of Sir David and Lord Adonis, who replaced Mr Hoon in last month's reshuffle, suggest the Government may be persuaded to commit to a more extensive network when a feasibility study is published in the next 12 months.
In an interview with the New Statesman, Lord Adonis said high-speed rail was "the project about which I am most passionate and the reason I came to the department".
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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