Tom Richmond: Why high-speed rail chiefs must make tracks for Yorkshire

So far so good. I then clicked on the “current vacancies” link. It was for a “senior project manager” with HS2 Ltd, responsible for providing the IT support that will underpin the country’s high-speed rail revolution.

And, even though I’m the last person to be qualified for any computer-related role, one’s eye was inevitably drawn towards the package on offer – £57,966 plus benefits and based in London.

My curiosity aroused, I wondered how many people are already working on HS2, even though the necessary legislation has still to win Parliamentary approval.

You’ll be surprised. According to an HS2 spokesperson, the answer is 565. She added: “Not all staff are based in London – 11 staff are based outside of the city.”

She then offered this justification: “It was important to maintain a presence close to Parliament and to relevant Government departments, but in order to minimise costs the majority of staff will move to Canary Wharf into space vacated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

“At the same time, work has commenced on developing a longer- term strategy as we develop the construction arm of HS2 Ltd. It is likely that this part of our business will be located in Birmingham.”

Don’t get me wrong. I have always been a staunch advocate of high-speed rail and was advocating radical action to increase capacity on Britain’s creaking rail network long before the Government woke up to the fact that this necessity – rather than swifter journey times – was the central argument in favour of HS2.

But why is all this work – and I admit to being slightly surprised by the number of personnel who have already been added to the public payroll – being undertaken in London when Ministers have spoken, repeatedly, about their desire to narrow the North-South divide and transfer power from the capital to regions like Yorkshire?

Just because transport’s purse-strings have always been controlled in London, and to the detriment of regions like Yorkshire, should not mean that HS2 Ltd should be permanently centred in Canary Wharf or wherever.

If Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin and the quietly impressive HS2 supremo Sir David Higgins, the mastermind behind the successful staging of the 2012 Olympics, are serious about the whole of Britain benefiting from historic investment of £40bn, depending on the latest arithmetic, they should move the project team lock, stock and barrel to Leeds or Sheffield.

Let me explain why. The London element of the high-speed rail project is likely to be the last element to be finalised. It is already contingent on Heathrow Airport expanding at the expense of the proposed “Boris Island” in the Thames Estuary – and Chancellor George Osborne had his tuppence-worth just for good measure during a trip to Hong Kong when he visited a high-speed rail terminal at Kowloon and mused: “I’m thinking that maybe we should go for a really big re-development of Euston.” In short, London must come first – again.

Yet, while Osborne plays with the train set, there have been suggestions that HS2 construction work could begin in the North as both a signal of intent and to keep costs down – an early start would help to limit costs (because of inflation) and the budget needs to be spent evenly over the next two decades because the Treasury simply can’t write a one-off cheque for £40bn or so in 2030. This is how public finance works.

To me, this is why HS2’s decision to be based in London becomes misguided. While the Manchester leg of the Y-shaped line is taking shape – the problem is tempering the enthusiasm of the North West city according to the aforementioned Sir David – the Yorkshire element is more problematic.

It has still to be resolved whether Sheffield’s HS2 stop should be in the city centre or on the Steel City’s perimeter, near Meadowhall shopping centre.

And then dear old Leeds. As well as the growing opposition in communities like Church Fenton, where residents fear that their homes will be blighted by a large viaduct, the enthusiasm of city leaders is at best muted.

Despite Leeds Council having a significant marketing and communications apparatus, it has still to properly assess the economic potential of an HS2 hub being built near Asda’s headquarters – the dividend should run into the tens of billions if a proper masterplan is created. Yesterday Birmingham Council revealed a blueprint that aims to create 14,000 jobs on the back of its HS2 station and generate £1.3bn a year for its economy – sums that Leeds, and Sheffield for that matter, cannot afford to ignore.

There is also concern that the HS2 terminal will be on a separate site to the existing Leeds Station. This should not be an obstacle – even the council concedes that the transfer could take as little as eight minutes, the length of time that it takes to walk down Wellington Street or from King’s Cross to the Tube.

Even though Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, whose Morley constituency covers outer Leeds, has become an HS2 sceptic, I – and many others – have been surprised by the lack of momentum locally, with even this summer’s Grand Départ being used to promote Leeds as a high-speed city of the future. At least Wakefield Council’s opposition is principled.

My point is this: if momentum for HS2 is to be maintained, and the concerns of opponents assuaged, this exercise should be done on the ground rather than from an executive office suite in London’s Docklands.

HS2 is not the only organisation that has become too London-centric. The same could be said for most Whitehall departments – and Britain’s tourism industry. Its various quangos promise policies for the whole country, but the executives in charge seem reluctant to leave the capital.

If I was in charge, I would relocate the Department for Transport to the North. Improved infrastructure is critical if Yorkshire, the North East and the North West are to start punching above their weight, but I can’t see any political party supporting this – they’re all London-based and too afraid of upsetting Boris Johnson, the capital’s mayor and now Britain’s favourite politician.

But there’s nothing to stop HS2 being driven forward from a base in these parts – 565 jobs (and counting) would be a significant boost to the economy – and such a radical approach would signal to the world that Yorkshire’s best days lie ahead. After all, one of the mottos of high-speed rail is “Investing in Britain’s future”. Not London – but Britain. And that, if my geography is still correct from my A-level days, includes Yorkshire.

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