10-04-2023, 07:12 PM
The Liberal Party notes todays(4th October) statements confirming that the government intends to halt the progress of the HS2 rail project at Birmingham siting increased costs.
There has already been a substantial amount of taxpayer money invested in HS2, more than £71 billion as of 2019, and we acknowledge that the railway infrastructure in this country is already of a bygone era, namely, the Victorian era when many of the cross-country routes were inaugurated.
We therefore urge the government to simplify the extended phase of HS2 with a single route linking Birmingham to Manchester via Crewe and to invest money in local public transport and rail links.
The party notes we are the only major economy within Europe to not have high speed rail and we would support increasing the capacity of both the west and east coast services to serve more cities such as Liverpool, Leeds, and Newcastle.
The continued uncertainty over the continuation of the project has casts a cloud over infrastructure investment and brings into question the governments commitment to its levelling-up agenda for central and northern England.
There has already been a substantial amount of taxpayer money invested in HS2, more than £71 billion as of 2019, and we acknowledge that the railway infrastructure in this country is already of a bygone era, namely, the Victorian era when many of the cross-country routes were inaugurated.
We therefore urge the government to simplify the extended phase of HS2 with a single route linking Birmingham to Manchester via Crewe and to invest money in local public transport and rail links.
The party notes we are the only major economy within Europe to not have high speed rail and we would support increasing the capacity of both the west and east coast services to serve more cities such as Liverpool, Leeds, and Newcastle.
The continued uncertainty over the continuation of the project has casts a cloud over infrastructure investment and brings into question the governments commitment to its levelling-up agenda for central and northern England.