Wednesday 03 February 2010
Sir Richard Leese talks about HSR\\UK to Industry and Parliament Trust magazine, The Bridge.
Sir Richard Leese is the leader of Manchester City Council and chair of the HSR//UK campaign, a group of 11 major cities – Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, and Sheffield – that have joined together to call for the development of a high-speed rail network, which will not only link centres of economic activity in the UK, but also connect to the high-speed network already in existence in Europe.
Here Sir Richard explains why a high speed rail network matters so much.
“High Speed Rail has the potential to revolutionise travel in the UK. As a mode of transport it has three key features: capacity, speed and reliability.
Our current rail network is carrying more passengers than at any time since the Second World War.
Demand forecasts carried out for the Department for Transport show that without intervention there will soon be critical capacity problems on the West Coast Main Line between Euston and Birmingham, the Great Western Main Line out of Paddington, the Midland Main Line out of St Pancras and most of the East Coast Main Line from King’s Cross to Edinburgh.
HSR has the potential to carry up to 15,000 passengers per hour in each direction between London and other major cities, with the potential to almost double this with the use of duplex trains.
Delivering on our cities’ growth potential, however, not only means easing capacity constraints, to avoid a decline in the quality of the rail offer, it also means providing absolute improvements in it, boosting labour market and business to business connectivity.
One of the strategic strengths of HSR is that it can deliver on both fronts. The increased speed could offer London to Scotland journey times of less than three hours, with the improvement in business connectivity this would provide being reflected in a potentially huge modal shift from air to rail.
South of the border, London to Birmingham in 45 minutes would bring economic benefits to both, as well as reducing pressure on housing demand in the south east. For those cities between the Midlands and Scotland, HSR would make business and leisure trips within the UK more attractive, and any delays would be kept to seconds, not minutes or hours.
Developing a High Speed Line would also free up capacity on the conventional railway for local travel, as well as for freight, thereby becoming an enabler for the broader improvements in city region connectivity necessary to grow their labour markets. Conventional and High Speed line can be integrated to provide conventional feeder services to the High Speed network, meaning that those not directly served by the new line can still benefit.
These impacts would help us address the challenge of the ‘north-south divide’ – the £30bn annual productivity gap that prevents the UK economy from reaching its full potential. HSR makes it easier to open up new business opportunities, increasing the dynamism of business activity without the complexity and environmental impacts of air travel or the inconvenience and wider impact on the economy and environment of long distance driving.
Experience in Europe has shown that HSR can lead to massive improvements in regeneration opportunities; places like Lille and Lyon in France, Turin in Italy and Köln in Germany have all benefited from HSR through the development of knowledge-based businesses close to the station replacing previously derelict brownfield sites.
The UK is already experiencing HSR with the Channel Tunnel Rail Link and HS1 – with these key assets cities have the ability to link to Europe – opening up extensive new markets and business opportunities.
A HSR network would have a huge impact on reducing the UK’s carbon footprint. Other countries have shown that where rail journeys can be reduced to under three hours, significant numbers of air passengers will use rail transport, freeing up slots for airports to concentrate on international journeys vital to the nation’s economy.
The Eddington Transport Study estimated that the potential carbon savings from transferring London-Scotland air passengers to HSR could be 0.5 million tonnes per year. Over 60 years this would amount to 30 million tonnes – valued at £3.2 billion. Conventional rail cannot achieve this, and new advances in technology means that High Speed trains can be as energy efficient as conventional trains – and in some cases better.
We believe the case has been made, both by research and by looking at the performance of our international partners, for HSR as part of a wider strategy to address the transport constraints on our major cities’ ability to deliver their, and thus the country’s, sustainable growth potential. There has been much planning done already; despite the current recession it is vital that we move beyond planning and begin now developing a High Speed Rail network for the UK that will allow the economy to flourish.”
To find out more please visit the campaign website – www.highspeedrailuk.com