The former head of the Strategic Rail Alliance Group has described the idea of scrapping the HS2 link from Birmingham to Manchester as being “very stupid”
Richard Bowker told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that if the Birmingham to Manchester section of HS2 was dropped, “we really have done a very, very stupid thing”. adding that
“HS2 to Manchester is fully integrated with something called Northern Powerhouse Rail. You can’t do Northern Powerhouse Rail without that Manchester section.”
Speculation in the media over the fate of the link continues
Former Tory leader William Hague said that HS2 is a “national disgrace” and should have been cancelled years ago,
He told Times Radio this morning
“Now you’ve got this classic problem. If you’re halfway though something and it’s been terribly badly managed — really a national disgrace as a project — do you say okay, I’m stopping this, or do you say actually now we’re halfway through we have to at least complete and make sense of the parts that we can still do.”
Yesterday Andy Burnham said axeing the extension risked creating a “north-south chasm” and in a letter to the Prime Minister he described the decision as being disrespectful
