Cancelled HS2 legs to Leeds and Manchester 'under consultation', Rail Minister says
The Government is considering the future of the previously cancelled HS2 routes to Leeds and Manchester, the Rail Minister has said.
Lord Peter Hendy told BBC Radio 4 that the northern legs of the high-speed rail network were “under consultation” and revealed that the land is still being held by HS2.
The original route would have connected London to Birmingham, with trains then going on to Manchester and Leeds to deal with capacity issues on both lines.
It would have cut the journey time from Leeds to Birmingham from almost two hours to less than 50 minutes, and would also have connected Sheffield to the network.
However, in 2021 Boris Johnson scrapped the Leeds leg and in 2023 Rishi Sunak axed the Manchester segment, with mayors describing it as a “betrayal of the North”.
The project’s budget has spiralled and it has been hit by huge delays, with Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander recently saying there was “no route” to the 2033 target.
In 2013, HS2 was estimated to cost £37.5bn (at 2009 prices) for the entire planned network, however now it appears at least £100bn will be spent on only 135 miles of railway.
However, Lord Hendy has suggested that the Government is considering resurrecting the two northern legs in some form.
He told BBC Radio 4's new podcast ‘Derailed: The Story of HS2’ that Labour had inherited a “mess”.
"There's no doubt about it,” he said, “but what we have resolved to do is to sort it out.
“The planning that went into HS2 was over a long number of years, and to… stop it without any thought of what you would do instead has caused us to have to think very clearly and do a load of work.
“So I can't pre-empt that, and in any case, our first job is to fix the project we've got now.”
Mr Johnson, who axed the section to Leeds, told the BBC podcast: “I could see the cost problems but great infrastructure projects depend on politicians having the will, political will to keep going because these are investments in the future."
Ms Alexander previously ruled out building the cancelled legs as originally planned, however one option could be for the Government to help assist a privately-funded line.
Greater Manchester and West Midland mayors Andy Burnham and Richard Parker proposed to replace the Birmingham to Manchester leg with a route supported by private investment.
Reports last year suggested the Government was considering supporting this project.
However, the Yorkshire mayors have not put together a similar proposal for the old Leeds leg, and this did not feature as part of Lord Blunkett’s recent plan to solve the region’s rail issues.
Lord Hendy recently told the Transport Committee that the focus should be on capacity instead of speed, which has been blamed for inflating HS2’s costs and increasing the complexity of designs.
He said: “It was hard to understand why there was such zealotry (with HS2) about the highest-speed railway in a relatively small country, when the origination of it was to relieve capacity.”
Mr Sunak’s decision in 2023 has meant that when HS2 trains move onto the existing rail line after Birmingham, capacity will actually be reduced as they have smaller passenger numbers than the current services.
The Government has also announced its commitment to building Northern Powerhouse Rail, a separate high-speed line which links Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford with Manchester and Liverpool.
This was originally supposed to connect with HS2 near Manchester Airport.