Central line plan for high-speed rail link makes more sense

I AM one of the many hundreds of thousands who saw the proposed high-speed rail link from London as being a waste of taxpayers’ money, especially in these cash-strapped times.

Far from supporting economic growth I felt it was being proposed merely to allow a few well-heeled businessmen to get to Manchester a few minutes earlier – but then again the Conservatives (oh sorry – the coalition) always seem to be pleading poverty on the one hand yet able to find money for non-essential projects – for example giving billions in foreign aid, especially to Pakistan.

However, the letter from R Hanson (Yorkshire Post, July 19) made me reconsider slightly because his suggestion that the rail link should follow the old Great Central Railway and link most of the main cities in the North made absolute sense.

We need a rail link that allows the transportation of heavy goods as well as passenger trains to all of the North: that is the way to improve economic growth – not having a high-speed link to just one side of the country.

In saying that, one of the biggest turn-offs for rail travel is the horrendous effort involved in buying a ticket at a fair price. Many people decide it is easier to use their car than pay an inflated price just because they want to travel on that particular day – not everyone knows in advance when they need to travel distances.

From: Paul Withrington, Transport-Watch, Redland Drive, Northampton.

THE high speed rail line from Euston to Birmingham will cost £17bn, not counting the trains and the tax. Adding those yields £24bn or £900 for every household in the land – equivalent to a tax-hit of more than £500m on Yorkshire.

The proposers say 30,000 jobs will be created and the North-South divide reduced. However, more than 70 per cent of those jobs will be in London. The cost per job amounts to £800,000 making this proposal perhaps the most expensive job-creation scheme in the world.

HS2 plus the extensions to Manchester and Leeds will cost £45bn, including the trains and tax. That’s equivalent to £1,700 for every household or to a tax hit on Yorkshire of £1bn.

The financial loss, after accumulating fares and costs out to 2092 will be £38bn (see table two of the Department for Transport’s Economic Case, published in February).

Why does anyone in the North imagine this project will reduce the North-South divide or generate employment?

This vast expenditure will destroy jobs in that part of the economy that makes a genuine profit while encouraging firms to relocate in London.

Worse still, 99 per cent of the population will use the system less than once a year and by far the most frequent users will be from the wealthiest 20 per cent of households.

Why on earth should they enjoy such a subsidy?