Government underfire after ruling out high-speed rail link for Liverpool

Oct 31 2007 By Rob Merrick

THE Government was under fire last night after suggesting any high-speed rail link from London would run only as far Birmingham – not to the North.

Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly said for the first time that the long-promised line – boasting trains as fast as 200mph – might link England’s two biggest cities only. Network Rail’s original proposal for the line was for it to connect London to Scotland in just 2hrs 35mins, with a possible link to Liverpool.

The idea was to kick-start an economic boost in the North and in Scotland by “shrinking Britain” – while also cutting demand for environmentally- damaging air travel.

Last year, Network Rail – estimating the cost at £14bn – predicted the route would be used annually by 21.1m passengers by 2016, rising to 29.7m by 2031.

But while unveiling a new long-term transport strategy yesterday, Ms Kelly insisted a London-Edinburgh high-speed line would cost £30bn – something she described as “not the best use of funds”.

Instead, she said: “If you look at the London to Birmingham link, the challenges we need to solve and how does high-speed compare with road widening, the answer may be different.”

Susan Kramer, the Liberal Democrat transport spokeswoman, accused the Government of failing to offer “a coherent vision for Britain’s future transport system”.

She added: “While a high- speed line from London to Birmingham is a welcome first step, the Government must commit to developing the line farther through northern England and up to Scotland.”

Lack of enthusiasm for high-speed rail has also been condemned by Tom Winsor, the Govern- ment’s former rail regulator, who argued it would “deliver really significant benefits to our country”.

Network Rail had pro- posed services running every half-hour from London to Glasgow or Edinburgh, probably through Manchester, but with possibly linking Leeds, Liverpool and Newcastle.

It followed warnings that existing Intercity routes will run out of capacity by 2015 – forcing rail companies to price passengers off trains and onto already overcrowded roads. Britain failed to follow Japan and many European countries in building high-speed railways in the 1970s and 1980s, because the existing network then had spare capacity. So far, the Channel tunnel rail link, which carries Eurostar trains at up to 186mph into London, is the only high-speed line. Yesterday’s document lacked specifics on tackling Britain’s transport problems – also putting forward wider motorways and more congestion charging schemes as options.

Instead, Ms Kelly promised a “robust regional consultation” by the year’s end of the year, on how to spend £20bn of transport funding in the period 2014-19.

Her And she put forward a “pro-green, pro- growth” message insist- ed roads, rail and air- ways networks could all expand without undermining Britain’s commitment to cutting CO² emissions.

But campaigners attacked a failure to reject airport expansion, which showed the Government was “detached from reality”.