Conservatives pressed on high-speed trains

Conservative Party grandee Lord Heseltine says a nationwide high-speed network is the "most ambitious and demanding" engineering challenge of our time, but says it has the potential to regenerate regions of the UK which have fallen behind London and the South-East.

Today he will launch a pamphlet by right-wing think-tank the Bow Group which urges the Tories to see their current commitment of a line from London to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds as the first stage of a much wider network which would also include an east coast line stopping at Sheffield.

The group says it is vital that Heathrow and other major UK airports such as Manchester and Birmingham are included in the network, and also raises the prospect that Leeds could have one city centre station and another on the outskirts to serve outlying areas.

But it warns that, despite the state of the public finances, a Tory government must not delay planning and building the 250mph network because it could derail the project for good.

High-speed rail is set to become an election battleground, as the Government considers proposals drawn up by its own company, High Speed Two.