Darling emerges as HS2 sceptic

23 Aug 13
Former Chancellor Alastair Darling today urged the government to halt plans for the High Speed 2 rail line, warning that the scheme would restrict vital improvements to other part of the network.

By Richard Johnstone | 23 August 2013

Former Chancellor Alastair Darling today urged the government to halt plans for the High Speed 2 rail line, warning that the scheme would restrict vital improvements to other part of the network.

Writing in The Times, Darling said the nearly £10bn increase in the budget for the scheme to £42.6bn, announced in June, showed construction of the line from London to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds would ‘substantially drain’ funds from other projects.

Darling, who also served as transport secretary from 2002 to 2006 and previously supported the project, said the economic case for the new line was now ‘highly contentious’. He added that his experience in government also made him suspicious of ‘big projects that can easily run out of control’.

Although Darling accepted the need for increased railway capacity between London, the midlands and the north west of England, the money spent on HS2 couldn’t then be spent on upgrading other lines that also need improvement. Among schemes that would suffer as a result were plans to deliver much-needed links between cities outside London, he added.

‘Put it another way – if you gave England’s biggest cities £10bn each for economic development would they spend it on HS2?

‘The next government and the one after that will be very short of money to spend on infrastructure that we desperately need. To commit ourselves to spending so much on a project that rules out other major schemes seems foolish.’

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