Scrapping HS2 to Leeds will relegate Yorkshire in status – Yorkshire Post Letters

From: Bill Hobman, North Yorkshire.

THE eastern leg of HS2, the biggest single infrastructure project needed to level up all of the North, still awaits its confirmation announcement (Tom Richmond, The Yorkshire Post, October 28).

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Levelling up means no sloping shoulders and HS2 to Leeds is tailormade as the key banner project and test for the whole levelling up ambition.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak omitted to mention Northern Powerhouse Rail or the eastern leg of HS2 during his Budget. What does this mean for the North and levelling up?Chancellor Rishi Sunak omitted to mention Northern Powerhouse Rail or the eastern leg of HS2 during his Budget. What does this mean for the North and levelling up?
Chancellor Rishi Sunak omitted to mention Northern Powerhouse Rail or the eastern leg of HS2 during his Budget. What does this mean for the North and levelling up?

It is the touchstone, the big and unique opportunity to demonstrate how serious is the Government in its stated commitment to level up.

An early delivery timescale is fundamental to the East Pennine Region’s credibility as one of the top places to invest in the UK.

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Failure to go ahead with HS2 to Leeds would serve to demonstrate the emptiness of Conservative slogans and promises and relegates the region to second class status.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak omitted to mention Northern Powerhouse Rail or the eastern leg of HS2 during his Budget. What does this mean for the North and levelling up?Chancellor Rishi Sunak omitted to mention Northern Powerhouse Rail or the eastern leg of HS2 during his Budget. What does this mean for the North and levelling up?
Chancellor Rishi Sunak omitted to mention Northern Powerhouse Rail or the eastern leg of HS2 during his Budget. What does this mean for the North and levelling up?

Northern Powerhouse Rail is another necessary project, but it should not delay HS2.

From: Sir John Armitt, Chair, National Infrastructure Commission.

ONGOING uncertainty hanging over major rail schemes in the North and Midlands is not in anyone’s best interest, not least because of the timescales involved in taking such large projects from aspiration to delivery.

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We gave our own independent assessment of options to government 10 months ago. The Government’s plan should be published without further delay to help unlock economic growth across the North and break the cycle of committing to schemes only to later reopen them.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak omitted to mention Northern Powerhouse Rail or the eastern leg of HS2 during his Budget. What does this mean for the North and levelling up?Chancellor Rishi Sunak omitted to mention Northern Powerhouse Rail or the eastern leg of HS2 during his Budget. What does this mean for the North and levelling up?
Chancellor Rishi Sunak omitted to mention Northern Powerhouse Rail or the eastern leg of HS2 during his Budget. What does this mean for the North and levelling up?

From: Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire.

TWO-and-a-half years since the Prime Minister promised to level up our country, we’ve grown tired of waiting: the Levelling Up White Paper has been delayed, yet again; the Integrated Rail Plan was a glaring omission.

For working families in West Yorkshire, the Budget has, sadly, made very little difference where it matters most – their pockets and their prospects.

Whilst we welcome the Government’s local transport plans, with a much-needed £830m investment, it’s only part of the answer. There was nothing on HS2 East, and nothing on Northern Powerhouse Rail, with that crucial stop in central Bradford.

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Both projects are vital to improving connections between the great cities of the North and Midlands. We’re told they are coming soon, but the watered-down versions that are rumoured are not acceptable.

From: Ralph Lennard, Leeds.

GREAT article by Tom Richmond (The Yorkshire Post, October 28) on HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail.

As your Comment Editor is also your newspaper’s racing correspondent, could get me a quote on the latest odds on Crossrail 2 being built before we have a spade in the ground on the so-called Northern Powerhouse Rail, never mind HS2 reaching Leeds?

From: Peter Hyde, Driffield.

I THINK Rishi Sunak has not done a lot of good with his Budget (The Yorkshire Post, October 28). His big mistake is not helping the old folks with failing to cut heating bills.

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Perhaps he is hoping for a mild winter. Cutting tax on beer will not help the leisure industry a great deal. The HS2 line seems dead so why not divert funds from that to improve general rail services?

From: Malcolm Naylor, Cowpasture Road, Ilkley.

THE Budget exposed the true colours of the Conservatives. They rob the poor and give to the rich. Pensioners were not mentioned once in the Budget given by a multi-millionaire Chancellor whose wife is reputed to be richer than the Queen.

We are not as invisible as the Chancellor seems to think, and this disgraceful treatment will be neither forgotten or forgiven at the next elections.

From: Bob Watson, Baildon.

GIVE us cash for skills revolution (The Yorkshire Post, October 27). Give us cash for transport issues. Give us cash for social care. Give is cash for the NHS. Give us even more cash for the minimum wage.

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The list goes on and on. All these and many more are, of course, worthy causes, but there really has to be a reality check in all this. There is not a bottomless pit of money, and the worldwide pandemic has devastated the finances of all countries.

From: Barrie Crowther, Walton, Wakefield.

HOW does Boris Johnson’s vision of re-wilding Britain fit in to the thousands of acres of good agricultural land, woodland and houses being bulldozed for the neither use nor ornament HS2?

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