HS2 rail plan scrapping attacked by North East leaders

North East leaders have attacked the decision to scrap the Leeds leg of the HS2 high-speed rail line.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced a £96m package promised to bring faster journeys.

The planned Northern Powerhouse Rail line has been replaced with an upgrade and electrification which will extend to the Tees Valley and Newcastle.

Anti-HS2 campaigners welcomed the news but Gateshead Council leader Martin Gannon described it as "a hammer blow".

Mr Gannon, who is chair of the North East Joint Transport Committee, called the government's long-awaited Integrated Rail Plan "the very opposite of levelling up".

Mr Gannon, a Labour politician, added: "I'm not quite sure what our area has done to deserve such contempt. 

"The government appears to be arbitrarily ruling out major investment in the East Coast Main Line in our region, as well as confirming it won't build HS2 to Yorkshire or the North East, and the Northern Powerhouse Rail plan seems to have been scaled back to a minor upgrade that is pretty much what was already promised - and not delivered - a decade ago." 

By Richard Moss, political editor, BBC North East and Cumbria

Given HS2 was never going to pass through the North East, you might wonder why some politicians and business leaders in the region feel let down.

One reason is capacity. The East Coast Main Line is creaking. A new high-speed eastern link to London would have eased the pressure.

The government insists its plans include enough investment on existing lines to keep services on the rails and offer shorter journey times, but their opponents are deeply sceptical.

The second reason is symbolism. There is a clear contrast between the billions upon billions invested in new rail lines in London, and the HS2 Birmingham link, with what Labour has called a "make do and mend" approach in the North.

It's possible ministers are calculating the North East public will be less anguished than politicians and business leaders about a high-speed line that didn't pass through the region.

They could be right. But in order to answer charges that their plan levels down rather than up, voters who backed the Conservatives in 2019 will surely want evidence that buses and trains they use every day will be backed instead.

There is the plan to put passenger trains back on the Northumberland Line between Ashington and Tyneside, but today's blueprint offered little or no hope for the reopening of the Leamside Line. That is a route that could be a boon to commuters in Wearside and County Durham, especially those living in Washington - currently the largest town in England without a rail service.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told the Commons earlier the plans would mean journey times being slashed across the region with what he claimed was an "ambitious and unparalleled programme".

He said the overhaul would bring faster journeys up to 10 years earlier than planned.

However, Newcastle City Council leader Nick Forbes said it was a "false economy".

"This is a short-sighted decision that will worsen UK regional inequality," he said.

"Today's announcement is a false economy, not a strategic plan, saving a relatively small amount of money while causing years of disruption for commuters by attempting to improve existing infrastructure that was first built in the Victorian era."

The regional branch of the CBI said businesses were disappointed the "goalposts have moved at the 11th hour".

CBI North East director Sarah Glendinning said the plan was a "significant investment that will go some way towards modernising our ageing rail networks and can be delivered at pace".

However, she added businesses were "concerned that some of the areas most sorely in need of development will lose out as a result of the scaled-back plans".

Newcastle North Labour MP Catherine McKinnell said people would "struggle to understand why this government expects northerners to be grateful for piecemeal improvements to our creaking 20th Century rail system".

"We have waited so long for this Integrated Rail Plan, but rather than the blueprint for integrating Northern Powerhouse Rail and HS2 that was promised, all we seem left with is a collection of smaller-scale projects that amount to a continuation of disintegrated rail," she said.

Stockton North Labour MP Alex Cunningham called the decision an "utter betrayal of the people in Teesside and the North East by the government".

Meanwhile Middlesbrough Labour MP Andy McDonald accused the government of short-changing the North East and said the "make do and mend" approach was "not good enough".

Mr McDonald said: "For too long the North East has been forgotten and rail commuters have faced a poor service on inadequate infrastructure and major investment is needed across our regional network.

"It's a different world compared with the South East.

"If HS2 is to lift the strain off our entire rail network and deliver the full benefits for passengers and communities across all of the North of England and the Midlands, all of it needs to be built not just part."

Conservative Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen said: "HS2 will deliver nothing for Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool.

"The whole project is a waste of money and should be scrapped in order to focus on improving regional rail travel."

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