Former Welsh council leader encourages Wales to say No to HS2
6th August, 2011
Although the consultation ended a week ago, HS2 continues to attract detractors and critics from across the nation.
Notably today a former Bridgend council leader, Jeff Jones, announced his opposition to the scheme, which up until now has been fully backed by Welsh political leaders.
Since the plans to build HS2 were first announced by the government last March, Welsh MPs have supported the scheme. The MP for South Clywd, Susan Ellan-Jones has so enthusiastically embraced the policy that she is now leading a cross-party campaign to lobby for the line. Ellan-Jones and other’s argue that HS2 would bring improved transport links to North and Mid-Wales, and have used the policy as a political lever to oppose the Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gillan, who opposes the scheme. Jeff Jones said, “ “Instead of seeing this as an easy hit on Gillan perhaps they need to step back a bit and really assess whether this will benefit any part of Wales.”
Having read the report submitted by local councils opposing HS2, an alliance known as 51M, Jeff Jones is the first Welsh political leader to make a statement against it. He said:“”I can’t understand why any Welsh MP sees any political mileage in supporting the scheme.
“I never realised for a start that HS2 needs a new station in Birmingham. In other words travellers from North Wales will have a 10 minute walk to the new Curzon Street station from New Street. Given that HS2 only reduces journey to Birmingham by 35 minutes and that of course assumes that the assumptions are right then there doesn’t seem much benefit for travellers from North Wales.
“As for South Wales travellers, the MPs haven’t pointed out the severe disruption that HS2 will cause during its construction because a new station will be built at Old Oak Common, on the Great Western line in West London. This is on top of the construction delays caused by the new depot for Cross Rail.
“Then of course there is the cost: £780m just to get the bill through at a time of cutbacks and before even one rail has been laid.
The 51M group have calculated that HS2 will cost each constituency £51 million in contributions towards the cost of the project. The total contribution to the construction of HS2 by Welsh taxpayers will be over £2 billion, which does not include on-going subsidy contributions. And yet Wales, like many regions outside of the four cities to be connected by the Y-shaped network, is unlikely to benefit from HS2 and could even loose out as a result.
Not only will there be no direct link to Wales on the new route, in a recent report by the pro-lobby group Greenguage 21 it was stated that Wales’ economy could be negatively affected by HS2 by inhibiting its growth.
Welsh regional transport itself is in urgent need of upgrading, but cuts are threatening to restrict improvements desparately needed to encourage ecomonic growth.
In January 2011, the Welsh Assembly stated that the Welsh rail network was desperately lagging behind other parts of the UK, and was still not getting its fair share of investments, just months after the Welsh government made 12% cuts to its economic and transport department. Following these calls, The Cardiff Business Partnership (CBP) made a further plea for a crucial investment of at least £2.5bn over 10 years, to connect Cardiff, Newport and the valleys, in order to make a “significant contribution to improving Wales’ economic fortunes”. They warned that if they did not invest further in transport, it would be hard to raise Wales out of recession.
Jerry Marshall of the AGAHST Federation said, “HS2 will be a massive white elephant, it will cost every household in Wales over £1000, and it will put much more urgent transport projects in Wales onto the back burner.”
Beckie.barlow
180 days ago
This Idea from the government is just a big vanity project. It will cost the country billions and at this time we can I’ll afford this. Maybe the country does need to review the railways but several reports have proved that we can upgrade and improve what we have for a fraction of the cost. The government are saying it will gives jobs, surely if we stopped cost cutting to pay for mad projects like this people would not be loosing their jobs in the first place. So far 10 million has been spent on a project that has flopped and failed in every country who has implemented high speed. Someone must have some sense and power in our government to stop this madness!