Three cheers for HS3
Both the economy of Britain and our transport network are far too London-centric. So I was delighted to hear the chancellor yesterday proposing that we start looking at a High Speed Rail link to connect the great cities of Northern England.
“But together our northern cities can be more than the sum of their parts.
“The last census found that the average commute of someone who travels into London from outside is 40 miles. If you make a circle of the same distance, and centre it here on Manchester, you’d have a catchment area that takes in Leeds, Sheffield and Liverpool, Lancashire, Cheshire and Yorkshire, and contains ten million people – more than Tokyo, New York or London. An area containing nearly two million graduates. A huge pool of talent.”
Furthermore, the Chancellor recognised some of the problems with our transport infrastructure, saying:
“…today the transport network in the north is simply not fit for purpose – and certainly not good enough, if we want our cities to pool their strengths… Manchester and Sheffield are just 38 miles apart – yet it takes over 1 hour 20 minutes to travel by car. In that time you can get from Southampton to Oxford, which is twice the distance… it’s quicker to travel the 283 miles from London to Paris by train than it is to travel less than half that distance between Liverpool and Hull… bus trips in the capital are up a third over the last ten years, but down by 7% in the northern cities…”
The reaction to his speech was generally and unsurprisingly positive except from (or course) the Labour party and some of the more cynical, mostly London centroc, journalists.
But I think it was a great step forward and hope to see it put into action.
I was delighted to read in the speech George Osborne gave yesterday in Manchester the following about our great Northern cities:
“These cities, in a belt that runs from Liverpool to Hull all have strengths individually – but on a global scale they are also quite small. Manchester’s population is 2.6 million. Leeds’ and West Yorkshire’s is 1.8 million.“But together our northern cities can be more than the sum of their parts.
“The last census found that the average commute of someone who travels into London from outside is 40 miles. If you make a circle of the same distance, and centre it here on Manchester, you’d have a catchment area that takes in Leeds, Sheffield and Liverpool, Lancashire, Cheshire and Yorkshire, and contains ten million people – more than Tokyo, New York or London. An area containing nearly two million graduates. A huge pool of talent.”
Furthermore, the Chancellor recognised some of the problems with our transport infrastructure, saying:
“…today the transport network in the north is simply not fit for purpose – and certainly not good enough, if we want our cities to pool their strengths… Manchester and Sheffield are just 38 miles apart – yet it takes over 1 hour 20 minutes to travel by car. In that time you can get from Southampton to Oxford, which is twice the distance… it’s quicker to travel the 283 miles from London to Paris by train than it is to travel less than half that distance between Liverpool and Hull… bus trips in the capital are up a third over the last ten years, but down by 7% in the northern cities…”
The reaction to his speech was generally and unsurprisingly positive except from (or course) the Labour party and some of the more cynical, mostly London centroc, journalists.
But I think it was a great step forward and hope to see it put into action.
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