Opponents to a £32 billion high speed rail network between London and the north - the first phase of which would come to Birmingham - have vowed to carry on their fight as the Government looks increasingly likely to give plans the green light.
According to a government-commissioned report, suggested alternatives to the scheme would fail to deal with long-term overcrowding on trains while two alternative schemes would also consign passengers to long periods of disruption.
Prepared for ministers by Network Rail (NR), the report suggests that Transport Secretary Justine Greening will give the go-ahead to HS2 which passes through Tory heartlands in picturesque spots as early as Tuesday.
However, Martin Tett, leader of Buckinghamshire council and the chairman of the 51m alliance, a group of 18 local authorities opposed to HS2, said successful opposition to other major infrastructure schemes gave him hope.
“We’ll have a look at the actual announcement when it comes out, what Justine Greening is going to say,” he said.
“Then we’ll actually analyse it and obviously we’ll have conclusions drawn from that. It may involve a judicial review, it may involve more campaigning.”
He added: “We take a lot of inspiration from what happened on the third runway at Heathrow. There the government said they were going to go ahead, the campaign continued and they stopped it, and I think we’re very determined to do the same around here.”
HS2 envisages a high-speed line built initially between London and Birmingham, to be completed around 2026, with a second phase extending the line to north-east and north-west England by around 2032/33.
The NR report looked at two schemes which suggest a series of improvements to the existing West Coast Main Line (WCML).
The report said:
* Neither proposed alternative scheme would provide enough capacity to meet the forecast demand for commuter services on the WCML;
* Both schemes would result in long periods of heavy disruption for passengers while infrastructure work is undertaken;
* Both schemes would slow down the WCML’s fast lines and cause congestion;
* Neither scheme would allow any growth in freight traffic and in some cases would leave stations with fewer or no train services;
* In the longer term, running the proposed number of additional services would have a significant and detrimental effect on the reliability of the network.
The report also found that while cost estimates for the schemes were “realistic”, factors such as remodelling work at Euston station in London had not been included and the cost of disruption had been underestimated.
