HS2 uncertainty in the East Midlands 'has been a form of torture'

The cancellation of the entire eastern leg of HS2 has drawn reactions from campaigners, MPs and officials in the East Midlands.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told his party conference all of the project north of Birmingham had been scrapped.

The local chamber of commerce said it left the East Midlands "bottom of the pile" for transport infrastructure.

But the Midlands - both the East and West - will get a share of £9.6bn, the Department for Transport has said.

At the Conservative party conference, Mr Sunak said "the facts had changed" around HS2 but he pledged to "reinvest every penny" of an estimated £36bn into regional transport.

East Midlands Chamber chief executive Scott Knowles said: "Businesses in the East Midlands are exasperated at the HS2 saga that has been playing out for over a decade now and this latest embarrassing U-turn is another nail in the coffin for the government's levelling up mantra, which shows little sign of arriving in our region.

"While lots of the discussion today will be about the impact on Manchester and other parts of the North, the East Midlands continues to be bottom of the pile when it comes to public transport investment.

"Much like the trains travelling on our Victorian rail infrastructure, we find ourselves once again at a standstill, far away from the destination we want to reach and with next to no idea how we're supposed to get there."

The Department for Transport also said the reallocated funding would upgrade links between Newark and Nottingham, extend the existing London-Leicester-Nottingham trains to Yorkshire and the North East and reopen the Ivanhoe Line between Leicester and Burton-upon-Trent.

Whitehall said this would reduce travel time from Nottingham to Leeds by about an hour and enable "the quadrupling of direct seats" between the two cities plus 600 more seats per hour between Nottingham and Leicester.

No timeline was confirmed by for this project.

The new East Midlands combined authority covering Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire will be given a transport investment fund of £1.5bn, the government added.

Sir John Peace, Chairman of Midlands Connect, said he was "disappointed and disheartened" by the announcement but also highlighted the possible new projects.

"The Midlands Rail Hub and road programmes, including the A5 which have been announced today, resonate with us," he said.

"These are our transformational East-West priorities for the region, which we recommended and have been progressing with government.

"We are now calling for more detail on timescales and plan of action, and asking for a high-level urgent meeting with ministers, to ensure these plans and the benefits for the Midlands are delivered as quickly as possible."

Initial plans for HS2 had included a link from Nottingham to Leeds and beyond, but this was scrapped in 2021.

However this came with the promise of electrify the existing Midlands Mainline and investing about £11bn in rail links in the region.

Brent Poland, anti-HS2 campaigner and Green Party member, said: "I'm not a cynical person but I will believe [wider transport investment] when I see it because as we have seen when it comes to allocation of government funds, especially in areas like this, we don't really see the investment, so I'd like to see the devil in the detail.

"[Uncertainty about the project] has been a form of torture. In the last few years this area hasn't been able to move on.

"We would like our freedom back, we would like our community back we need to move on, we need to heal."

Ben Bradley, Conservative leader of Nottinghamshire County Council and Mansfield MP, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service the region would not lose out overall.

He pointed to a planned £1.75bn Midlands Rail Hub with access between Birmingham Moor Street and East Midlands Parkway station.

"The Midlands Rail Hub will look at how you get high-speed trains through Birmingham and out to East Midlands Parkway," he said.

"I'm still comfortable high-speed trains - not a new line but high-speed trains - will come to Parkway, Derby, Nottingham and Chesterfield.

"I don't agree we're not going to get high-speed travel through the East Midlands."

Alicia Kearns, Conservative MP for Melton and Rutland, said: "I think it started at the wrong end of the country, it should have been built from the north down.

"I think it is the old way of looking at levelling up in that it is connecting cities instead of towns.

"And of course the money, the way it keeps getting out of control, there are real questions for the management company there.

"But at the same time the message it sends - when we cancel major infrastructure - to international investors and the communities that would have benefitted, that for me is a major challenge."

Lilian Greenwood, Labour MP for Nottingham South and a former shadow transport secretary called the announcement an "absolute disaster".

"This was meant to be a project which was going to supercharge our economy," she said.

"It is about creating growth, that's what we know investing in transport infrastructure does, so obviously it is going to have a big impact on our city.

"It is going to create huge uncertainty for businesses, not least rail supply businesses that we know the East Midlands is famous for.

"Also when people are thinking about where to invest, whether to come to Nottingham, I think those sort of decisions are going to be put on hold."

The Labour leader of Nottingham City Council - David Mellen - said it was "nothing short of a disaster" for the local economy.

Derby train-maker Alstom, which has recently warned a gap in orders could mean job losses, said its joint-venture contract with Hitachi to supply trains for HS2 is only for phase one of the project, so the firm was not affected by new announcement.

Meanwhile, the company said it was still in negotiations with the Department for Transport about the delays to orders for that rolling stock.

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