High Speed Two - big transport thinking deserves support

Richard Brennan, chief executive of Birmingham Forward, explains why the city’s professionals believe High Speed Two (HS2) is worth the money and the wait:

HS2 is the biggest thinking we’ve had since the vision for the motorway network in the war-weary 1940s.  The collective verdict by the Birmingham Forward membership is that HS2’s a big idea with sound logic behind it.  Let me reflect the, more or less, unanimous view of the membership that we should each do all do we can to secure a direct line to Birmingham.

HS2 – Network Rail’s Options – the Fast Facts

• We’re talking about a completely new rail line which will carry passengers and freight at 300kmph (186 mph) between London and Glasgow/Edinburgh through Manchester.
• It involves 1500 miles of track, 30 miles of tunnels, 138 bridges, and eight new stations – a total investment of £34bn which the Government will fund.

It will take a minimum of five years to design/route and another five to construct.  Based on other studies and experience, this ten year timeframe seems highly optimistic.

HS2 is one of a few solutions which will help us, as a nation, overcome the problems posed by both congestion and climate change.

Ten reasons why we want HS2 to come to Birmingham

1. It will bring about a step change in travel times.  Time is money for the 250,000 professionals who call Greater Birmingham home.  We need to be seen to be ‘close’ and accessible.
2. Road travel into the major cities is notoriously unreliable.
3. Rail travel is still the safest form of transport.
4. We use the rail network now more than at any time for the last 60 years and the network is half the size it was back then.  One million more trains run (pa) today than five years ago.  Punctuality is at its highest since records began.
5. If take-up rates continue to grow, the West Coast Mainline is set to run out of capacity between Manchester and Birmingham by 2020.  We need more rail capacity and HS2 would be the equivalent of doubling Virgin’s current capacity.
6. Fuels rates – the only way is up.  When paying £2 per litre for fuel, even a first class rail ticket looks good value.
7. There is a direct link between a region’s and nation’s growth/position in world markets and the speed/ease of transit of people and freight.  We’re playing catch-up.  Think of Japan – the first high speed railway in the world – where its bullet train opened in 1964.  France launched the TGV in 1981.  But Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Korea all have high speed rail.  The UK opened its first stretch of High Speed One (HS1) in November 2007 linking London with the Channel Tunnel.  That now gives us London to Paris in two and a quarter hours and Brussels in an hour and fifty. 
8. As the UK’s logistics golden triangle, the Midlands has a duty to ‘walk the walk’ and the private sector will need to make its contribution towards modal shift to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  We need to do all we can to get as much freight off our roads as possible (HS2 has the potential to remove 480m vehicle miles pa).
9. Regeneration will focus on the HS2 stations – look to the motorway network for evidence of corridor development.  It’s estimated HS2 will generate £55bn in revenue and benefits over 50 years.
10. We need to act now because it took 20 years for the Channel Tunnel and Crossrail ambition to come to fruition.

But my clincher as to why Birmingham needs high speed rail is this.  Imagine a Britain without the motorway network. 

When the first motorway opened in 1958 – the M6 Preston by-pass – few at the time understood the true impact. 

The Midland section of the M6 was designed to carry 70,000 vehicles a day.  Today, a third of all national road freight travels on it as part of the 185,000 vehicles making use of Britain’s busiest motorway (except for the odd section of the M25).

In the 1950s, a trip from Birmingham to London along the A45 and M1 would have taken upwards of three hours.  Car design had its part to play but it’s the motorways which revolutionised journey times.

High speed rail is that step change we need for tomorrow’s carbon-efficient environment where we will be travelling a lot more by rail and less by road.
It will take the heat of the motorway network especially if it links with HS1.  By ‘link’, we mean, ideally being able to cross a platform or take a short walk (not a taxi or another train) to another high speed train – ie just as it works in Paris.

We believe we should avoid Heathrow.  If HS2 serves Birmingham International Airport, it massively widens access to air travel and increases airspace flexibility.  Most agree Heathrow 3 is a runway too far.  The South-East is so well served by airports, its airspace is congested.  It takes 20 minutes to get from Paddington to Heathrow.  HS2 would reduce journey times from London St Pancras to Birmingham International to 40 mins.

The key is action

Network Rail’s proposal is an interesting one but it is just one of several we’ve been waiting for.  The others due to report are: HS2 and Greengauge 21. The train operating companies (TOCs eg Virgin, Chiltern) have dropped their enquiries into the matter. 

History teaches us lessons.  When the M40 was first built connecting London to Oxford, it was relatively unused.  It wasn’t until the M40 was connected to the ‘Birmingham box’ that it became a well-used route out of London.

And, for once, the political omens are in our favour.  Both the government’s Lord Adonis and the Conservatives’ Theresa Villiers are in favour of HS2 even if they have separate takes on the subject.

From a professional services point of view, HS2 will make it easier for us to get to our clients and for them to get to us.  

Our final thoughts are, just as you wouldn’t try and build the whole UK motorway network in one fell swoop, let’s get the London to Birmingham section built and the rest will follow. 

The HS2 players

•  Network Rail – the organisation responsible for Britain’s rail network.
•  High Speed Two – the company the government formed to investigate the feasibility of a UK high speed rail network.  Sir David Rowlands is chairman.
•  Greengauge 21 – a not for profit organisation promoting high speed rail as a national economic priority.
•  Government – Geoff Hoon, secretary of state at Dept of Transport, National Networks Strategy Group -Lord Andrew Adonis
•  Train Operating Companies – Virgin, Chiltern etc.

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Contacts:
Kinetic Communications  0121 212 6250
Angela Podmore   07786 934 935
Aimee Postle    07950 689 689
 

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