The National Audit Office (NAO) report makes clear the plan the incoming Labour government is inheriting – a truncated HS2, and a West Coast Main Line operating at capacity – is not going to help grow the national economy, nor is it going to allow train performance on the West Coast to return to acceptable levels.
A line which fails to reach central London, and which worsens the bottleneck north of Birmingham is an inheritance that needs amendment.
High speed rail is essential to increasing capacity across our transport networks. Yet this report shows that current plans would cause the West Coast Main Line to be full up within a decade. What’s needed is extra capacity, not new bottlenecks.
Most of the suggested alternatives to delivering phase 2a – the link between the West Midlands and Crewe – will take longer to implement, and add risk and uncertainty, which are the enemies of efficient major project delivery. And no plan can be considered final until the line reaches Euston.
Done properly, high speed rail can stimulate growth in our regional economies. Sadly, as this NAO report demonstrates, the current plan falls far short of this objective.