Rishi Sunak abandons section of major HSR project

2023-10-04 12:35:07

The Prime Minister described the HS2 high-speed line project as “the ultimate example of the old consensus” and “the result is a project which has more than doubled in cost and suffered from repeated delays”.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced this Wednesday that he would scale back a major infrastructure project for the country, a high-speed train line which aimed to open up the north of the country but whose cost had soared.

“I am canceling the rest of the HS2 project,” declared the Conservative head of government during a speech at his party conference in Manchester (northern England). “In its place we will reinvest every penny, 36 billion pounds (41 billion euros, editor’s note), in hundreds of new transport projects,” he promised. “What we really need is better transport links in the north” and this “will be our priority” insisted Rishi Sunak during a speech at the annual conference of the Conservative Party.

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“A project whose cost has more than doubled”

To justify his decision, the Prime Minister claimed that “HS2 is the ultimate example of the old consensus” and “the result is a project which has more than doubled in cost and suffered from repeated delays”. The Prime Minister notably confirmed that he intended to boost a rail project already in the pipeline to improve connections between the main economic centers of the North, which will reduce travel times between Manchester, Bradford, Sheffield and Hull, on electrified lines.

While London’s reversals are very poorly received by elected officials in the north of England, who accuse the government of reneging on its promises to more economically disadvantaged regions, the leader also listed a long list of urban transport projects, buses or improved trams and road connections.

HS2 (High Speed ​​2), a second high-speed line project in the United Kingdom following that taken by the Eurostar to the Channel Tunnel (HS1), was originally intended to connect the British capital to Birmingham then to Manchester and Leeds. It will finally stop following Birmingham.

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