Jayne Dowle: HS2 on wrong track if it fails to spread the benefit

Now, as the route between the capital and Leeds is announced, it seems that no stations in South Yorkshire have been announced at all. Earlier this year, it was said that there were eight proposed sites for a putative “South Yorkshire Parkway” station. These included Bramley, Hooton Roberts and Wales in Rotherham, Clayton, Hickleton and Mexborough in Doncaster, and Fitzwilliam and Hemsworth near Wakefield.

Even the official spokesperson at the time admitted that a Parkway station would “further spread the considerable benefits that HS2 brings”. Admittedly, it’s reported that the decision will be made on this by the end of year, when it will then go to public consultation.

However this hesitation doesn’t bode well for the government’s so-called commitment to ensuring that HS2 spreads its benefits far and wide. Forgive me for being idealistic, but I thought that the whole point of spending all this public money on upgrading the network was to create a more joined-up country. I fail to see how this will be achieved if ministers and HS2 project leaders are taking such a piecemeal approach to announcing their plans. How can we get our heads around this new railway if we don’t know where the trains are going to stop? Even Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends knew we need stations and platforms. If nothing else, this hesitation undermines public confidence and leaves us all in limbo.

One thing that was confirmed earlier this week is that Sheffield is to rely on a spur which will utilise existing track to connect to the super-fast London service. No new station here. Not in the city centre. Or near Meadowhall, which was once under discussion too.

However, feasibility studies concluded that both these options were too problematic; the risk of flooding, long-term traffic congestion and the potential requirement to demolish part of the hugely-successful Meadowhall shopping centre, which not only brings in countless visitors every year, but provides thousands of jobs.

You might have thought that once the options in and around the important city of Sheffield had been discounted, ministers might have turned their attention to the rest of South Yorkshire and thought carefully about how to maximise every opportunity here. Or at least appear to have taken us into account. So far, the only thing that’s definitely going to happen is that 16 newly-built homes on the Shimmer estate in Mexborough, near Doncaster, will have to be smashed to smithereens. It’s hardly a positive, is it?

What about Barnsley, where I live? Rotherham? Doncaster? Out towards Pontefract, Hemsworth, Upton and any number of former mining villages in the vast tract between South Yorkshire, Wakefield and Leeds? If the government is serious about its promise to deliver “a stronger and fairer Britain” as the justification for its multi-billion pound project, it’s seriously missing the point. It’s also exceedingly arrogant.

These are the places which really might benefit from an improved rail link, of any description, going anywhere. I know there are countless sound arguments for focusing all the HS2 attention on London to Leeds. There are also counter-arguments which support the theory that Leeds has already set down firm roots in terms of employment, the visitor economy and relatively healthy property values.

From a national, regional and sub-regional stand-point, surely it makes sense to now focus the investment where it is now really needed. As Rotherham’s Labour MP, Sarah Champion, says: “South Yorkshire will now get all of the disruption of HS2 without the benefit”.

The residents of the Shimmer estate, who face the demolition of the homes they have lived in for just a few short years, are just the tip of the iceberg. Let’s not forget the dirt and dust, the inevitable delays to existing rail services whilst work is underway and the destruction of acres upon acres of rolling countryside that will be required to lay down the new HS2 line in our region. And for what? So we can wave at the shiny trains rushing past into the future?

There is still some glimmer of hope. The decision on the proposed Parkway stations is yet to be announced. I urge all those involved with visiting the potential sites and analysing the data over the summer to look beyond the facts and figures and to remember that there are people involved. More than one million people in South Yorkshire, to be precise, who are waiting at the platform marked “departures” and wondering if their connection might ever arrive.