On the right lines

TRANSPORT Secretary Philip Hammond was right to pay tribute to the formidable number of business and political leaders who want Yorkshire to be at the heart of a high-speed rail link.

Yorkshire is at its strongest, and most influential, when the region pulls together – and this determination will be critical in the months ahead.

As Mr Hammond said, high-speed rail is not a done deal. The economic and planning arguments still have to be won, with a very vociferous, but “influential” minority of objectors in the Home Counties determined to derail this scheme at the outset.

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They, too, have to be won over, as the Minister stated in Leeds, and the best means of achieving this is by the North building an even bigger consensus, with people of all ages and backgrounds championing the economic importance of high-speed rail.

So far, the issue has become a struggle between the North’s business wisdom and those countryside campaigners in the Home Counties who believe such a scheme will be environmentally and economically damaging.

Yet, in many respects, the most important people to win over are the young. The entrepreneurs and leisure travellers of tomorrow, they are the people who will have most to benefit from 200mph rail lines linking cities across the country.

As Mr Hammond said: “We have to address the economic divide between growth in the Midlands and the North, and growth in London and the South East. There is no other developed economy – except possibly Italy – that has such a stark division.”

Having made the Minister aware of high-speed rail’s importance, it is equally paramount that pressure is maintained until the scheme is given the green light.