Tories add to north-south chasm - Angus Robertson

​Once more, the Tories are shafting the North of England and Scotland.

An early representation of what the new HS2 trains could look like

The likely impending scrapping of the Manchester leg of the High-Speed 2 (HS2) project is the latest in the litany of failed promises of what would be a major and positive upgrade to the UK’s infrastructure.

​HS2 aimed to connect major UK cities via high-speed rail to improve movement of people, delivery of products, reducing car use and the carbon output of the UK.

From the off, the project had an eye-watering price tag. Based on 2019 estimates – which do not consider the impact of Brexit import costs and other global price increases – estimated the original total cost of all the various phases to be over 71 billion pounds. This makes it a tempting budget-saving project to cut despite its potential to improve UK-wide connectivity.

Now, instead of HS2 connecting London to Birmingham; Birmingham to Manchester and, in future, further into the North of England and Scotland, it is likely HS2 will now only serve the London to Birmingham leg.

Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham is totally right when he says the scrapping of HS2 beyond Birmingham would create a ‘north-south chasm’. It also undermines the prospect of Scotland having high speed rail connectivity.

Once more, London-centric Sunak showing he has no real interest in ‘levelling up’ the UK outside London.

It also raises a serious question about the ability of the UK to manage major infrastructure projects.