Salford councillor Mike McCusker has shared his thoughts on the alleged scrapping of the northern leg of HS2.
The decision to scrap a significant infrastructure project could risk undermining the UK Government’s ‘levelling up’ and Northern Powerhouse agenda, and has sparked huge backlash from local leaders.
Cllr McCusker, lead Member for Planning, Transport and Sustainable Development at Salford City Council, described such a decision as “unfathomable.”
He said: “It’s so short sighted on so many fronts, firstly around demonstrating to the world that the British Government can’t deliver difficult projects and showing north-south bias.
“The West Coast Main line is the most congested line in Europe. We’ve got a situation where we’re trying to share a line between long distance travel, local travel and freight and the whole thing about HS2 is it’s a completely clean line.”
He added: “It means we can move the long-distance trains on to it, which means it gives us more capacity and Manchester is completely choked with capacity at the moment, which is why we can’t get more than a couple of trains out of Eccles Station into Manchester every morning.”
With Salford Crescent only a ten-minute train ride away from Manchester Piccadilly, the city would equally see the benefits of a new high speed rail line.
Cllr McCusker said: “Salford is a rapidly growing city. Between 2011 and 2021, we grew by 15 plus percent.
“But, in order for sustainable development to take place, we’ve got to be able to move people around, which is why we’re taking back control of the bus, but we really need control of the rail as well.
“We need an integrated London style transport system, but at the moment we can’t get any more trains on the local routes because of the capacity issues”.
He added: “The alternative to HS2 is if we attempted to improve the local lines, you’re looking at something like more than two and a half thousand weekend closures over 15 years, and the chaos that that would cause is just unthinkable.”
Cllr McCusker doubted the government’s commitment to the north as well as the integrity of the levelling up programme.
He claimed that scrapping the northern leg of HS2 “would just further demonstrate that they don’t care about the north.”
He said: “I just think it’s a further demonstration that this proposed levelling up that the conservatives have been talking about for a few years is just a sham really.
“We’ve lost 240 million out of Salford Council’s budget since 2010, with central government funding cuts and unfunded pressures put on the Council by the government.”
The project was expected by many to be the backbone of Britain’s rail infrastructure for decades to come as well as the solution to many current problems.
Cllr McCusker said: “The government needs to take difficult decisions. This is an expensive project, but this is a once in a 100 years opportunity.
“I think it would be a mistake not just for the Conservative Party, but it’d be a terrible mistake for the north of England.”
Meanwhile on Monday MP for Salford Rebecca Long-Bailey also gave her thoughts on the alleged HS2 northern leg axing.
During an interview on ITV with Robert Peston she described the move as “completely disrespectful to the North.”
She said: “The sad thing about all of this is that the Prime Minister is saying we now need to look at the costs of this when he was at the table when the deals were being done.
“It’s staggering hypocrisy from him… even worse that he hasn’t appeared to engage with leaders here in the North West”
Labour’s @RLong_Bailey says the Prime Minister did not raise issues about the costs of HS2 despite working in the Treasury throughout its development#Peston pic.twitter.com/wKxU83K7Cg
— Peston (@itvpeston) October 2, 2023
“He was the Chief Secretary to the Treasury all the way through this, the Chancellor, and not at one point did he raise issues about the cost”.
She added: “It’s staggering hypocrisy, and even worse, he hasn’t appeared to engage with local leaders in the north-west, or indeed other parts of the country about the plans to scrap HS2.”
With Prime Minister Rishi Sunak still yet to announce his decision, many wait in anticipation.
However, with the likes of the BBC, Sky News and the Guardian all reporting that the northern leg is expected to be scrapped, the light at the end of the tunnel looks dim.
The PM is expected to set out a range of alternative projects in the north of England and Wales in his Conservative Party Conference speech on Wednesday (October 4).
One Comment