HS2 North is dead but mayors considering low speed version to boost trains

Hoardings surround the site of the Birmingham High Speed Rail 2 station construction site at Curzon Street. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak scrapped plans to extend HS2 beyond Birmingham in October 2023 (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

The mayors of Manchester and Birmingham have drawn up plans to build a low speed alternative to the northern leg of HS2 after it was scrapped by Rishi Sunak.

Andy Burnham, Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester and Andy Street, the Tory West Midlands Mayor, said its private consortium is exploring plans that could see a new lower speed line replace the axed high speed link between Handsacre and Manchester Piccadilly.

The proposal is one of three options being considered by the group to try to improve rail connections and capacity between the two major cities.

An alternative is to enhance the existing West Coast Mainline to increase capacity on the line, which is seen as the cheapest option on the table.

The third proposal is building major bypasses along the West Coast Mainline in an attempt to ease bottlenecks between Birmingham and Manchester.

Both regional mayors warned that the existing rail link and the M6 motorway were running at near capacity, with Mr Burnham stating that doing nothing “was not an option”.

The private consortium, which includes HS2 Ltd, Network Rail and engineering giant Arup and is being chaired by former HS2 Ltd chair Sir David Higgins, will examine following a similar route of the HS2 line that was scrapped by the Prime Minister in October last year.

Mr Street said during a presentation in Birmingham on Wednesday: “The key difference is obviously the question of speed that the line would be. And a lot of the cost of HS2, if you ask the design engineers, has actually come from this very uncompromising point about the speed.

“So if you are prepared to compromise on some of the speed, you do, of course, get slightly longer travel times but you also get a substantial option of reducing costs.”

The mayors said they have secured interest from Transport Secretary Mark Harper and his opposite number in Labour, Louise Haigh, who have said they would be willing to examine any proposals.

The consortium will now develop more concrete options and present them to the Government and the Labour shadow transport team once that work is completed in March.

No costs have been put forward on the separate options so far, with both mayors unable to state how much private and public investment would be required to deliver the different schemes.

Mr Burnham said there were precedents for a new rail link that were “largely privately funded”, such as the French TGV link out of Bordeaux.

Mr Street said the possibility of trains stopping between Crewe and Manchester on a new line, unlike under the plan for HS2, would be considered, but “there won’t be 10 stops”.

Mr Street said: “One of the things that I’ve been calling out for many years now about HS2, as much as I believed in the principle of it, the notion that the state should take all of the cost on its balance sheet right from the start, I think is not the most efficient way of doing it.

“I really hope we will get something that may actually be of use well beyond this project.”

Mr Burnham said: “This is not just trying to do HS2 in a different way. It’s a different set of proposals that are coming forward.”

The mayors met Transport Secretary Mark Harper last week to discuss the work.

Mr Harper “indicated an open mind”, Mr Burnham said.

He added that a “do nothing” approach is “not an option” as that would be “damaging to economic growth in the regions” and “leave the UK with quite a serious transport headache for the rest of this century”.