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Yorkshire Post campaign: Why we need a new high-speed rail link to London
BUILDING a high-speed rail line between Yorkshire and London could generate £10bn of economic benefits - and any move to leave this region out of a network would have "a significant impact" on jobs and wages, it was claimed last night.
Today, the Yorkshire Post launches a new campaign to persuade the Government to build a high-speed railway, with trains running at 200mph, into this region. Sign our petition
Called 'Fast Track to Yorkshire', we will be working alongside many of the region's MPs, business leaders and transport experts to highlight the importance of building the new line.
More on our campaign
Editor Peter Charlton said: "We're campaigning for a new high-speed line linking Yorkshire directly with London.
"It is vital we do not play second fiddle to other regions, like the North West .
"Communications with London are vital and a line to Yorkshire should be a priority in any new high-speed network to protect inward investment into the region and keep Yorkshire economically competitive."
At the moment, the Government is committed to building a new high-speed railway from London to Birmingham and it has set up a new quango - High Speed Two - to "investigate" options for extending that line northwards.
However, Government documents released via a Freedom of Information request show that current plans recommend building an extension first to Manchester, then to Glasgow, and only then building a spur south-east of Birmingham up to Sheffield, Leeds and York.
That would mean Yorkshire would not see the benefits of a high-speed line for decades, if at all - while the better connectivity to the North West would see that region's economy power ahead.
The Government has just spent 8.8bn upgrading the West Coast Main Line between London and Manchester, increasing line speeds so that Richard Branson's tilting trains can run between the cities at 140mph.
By contrast, while Network Rail this month promised to spend 578m on the East Coast Main Line over the next five years, that will see only small-scale improvements and there are fears the line between London and Yorkshire may soon reach its capacity.
Because of this, highly-respected transport consultancy Atkins believes a high-speed line from London to Yorkshire would offer far better value-for-money than an equivilent line to the North West.
It has proposed that the first line to be built be from London to Leeds via Peterborough and Nottingham, cutting journey times to 1hr 22mins. Additional routes would connect Sheffield to London in 79 mins and Hull to the capital in 1hr 48min. The line would then be extended from Leeds to York and Newcastle.
Research by development agency the Northern Way shows that the creation of new high-speed lines from the north to London and one across the Pennines would result in 10bn of economic benefits, including 3.5bn in the north.
Greg Mulholland, the Liberal Democrat Leeds North West MP, who is spearheading the campaign in Parliament alongside Labour's MP for Sheffield Attercliffe Clive Betts, believes a Y-shaped line should be created south of Birmingham, with one branch up to the North West and one up to Yorkshire.
He said: "The economic power of these two great Yorkshire cities, Leeds and Sheffield, together and their city regions is surely justification for a high-speed rail link to Yorkshire.
"We must make common ground across Yorkshire as a whole to campaign for this. If we don't speak up for this, no-one else will."
Tom Riordan, chief executive of regional development agency Yorkshire Forward, which is backing the campaign, said: "The research that we've done and the evidence that we've generated shows there could be a significant boost, not just to Yorkshire but to the UK as a whole.
"London is the world's financial capital and it makes absolute sense for us to be within easy travelling distance. One of the key issues inward investors have is how long does it take to get from Yorkshire to London and its airports and a high-speed line would be much welcomed by them."
He added: "It is vital we are included in a high-speed network. It is important Yorkshire is part of a fast rail link - it is infeasible that this region could be left out of a new network, it would have a significant impact on our economy."
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 26 May 2012
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Temperature: 8 C to 21 C
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