HS2 – a fitting obituary
It’s a funny old job being a civil servant: one day you are told, after years of penning documents that sing the praises of the HS2 project, to about-turn and produce a text that totally rubbishes it, and that is exactly what the author or authors of the Command paper published to support the PM’s cancellation announcement, CP 946[1], has/have been able to do. Mind you, the evidence that is presented in the pages of CP 946 is so compelling that the instruction to volte-face must have been fairly easy to comply with.
For example, on page 7 a bar chart is presented as figure 1 that illustrates the claim that it is local journeys that are the most-deserving focus for transport investment. The figure makes the comparison between pairs of cities of comparable size, one in the UK and the other in mainland Europe, in terms of the percentage of the local population that can reach the city centre by public transport within half an hour. In all pairings the UK example meets this target for a lower percentage of the population than its European comparator, in some cases by a considerable margin. Paragraph 1 of CP 946 cites the worst case, Leeds, where just four in ten people can reach the city centre in half an hour, where in Marseille the figure is nearly nine in ten, despite Leeds and Marseille being cities of similar size.
If the ratio of the percentages for each city pair is, itself, calculated as a percentage, it is possible to draw up a league table for the eight city pairs that are tabulated in CP 946. In this table the last three places, being the cities that have the highest discrepancy with their European pairings, all go to cities in the north of England: Manchester, Liverpool, and the aforementioned Leeds.
Paragraph 2, immediately following figure 1, gives some examples of reasonably short journeys in northern England that further reinforce the point by being served by inadequate public transport or involving an inordinately long travel time. Paragraphs that follow on make the connection between good transport links and productivity, employment and prosperity and claim that the “UK’s post-war economic history demonstrates a clear positive relationship between transport demand and GDP growth, and a clear drag caused by poor networks”. It is stressed that it is not just long-distance links that are required, but that good local and regional transport is “crucial” to stimulating economic activity.
Current patterns of transport usage by type are discussed on page 10 of CP 946, where we are told that 88% of passenger miles are by car, van or taxi and that, where travellers opt to use public transport, bus is the means chosen for most journeys. Also, “the vast majority of journeys are local, with nearly three-quarters running less than 5 miles”.
It seems from figure 3 on page 11 of CP 946 that the great British public has been way ahead of our politicians in appreciating this: based upon YouGov public opinion surveys over the last few years, this figure shows how the percentage of those polled, when asked to identify their key priority for transport investment, opted for each of six possible choices. In the most recent survey, in the summer of last year, only 7% of those polled identified long-distance rail as their key priority, with improvements to the bus network being chosen by more than double that number. These compare with the two most popular choices: upgrading existing roads (25%) and improving commuter rail links (21%).
In an untypical gesture of government mea culpa, paragraph 12 on page 11 admits that the Government’s transport investment policy has not reflected these public preferences. It is admitted that one-third of investment in transport is blown on one long-distance rail project; yes, you’ve guessed it – HS2. At £6.5 billion this current year it tops the entire road network investment budget by 23% and is more than all other investment in rail combined, is more than double the £3.1 billion for local transport and six times the £1.1 billion spent on roads.
[1] Network North: Transforming British Transport, CP 946, Department for Transport, 4 October 2023 (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65290f86697260000dccf78b/network-north-transforming-british-transport-print-version.pdf)
