The following article was published in ROOT & BRANCH the newsletter of Royal Town Planning Institute Yorkshire, Autumn 2011, issue 118.
The socio-economic future of Yorkshire is intrinsically tied to the Government's decision on HS2 later this year. I admire the passion and determination of business leaders and MPs in Yorkshire calling for HS2 to come to the county but I believe that they are settling for second best.
I believe Government will decide eventually not to proceed with the line despite its claims that HS2 will bring “strategic change in the economic geography of Britain" as it will have to accept the overwhelming evidence that suggests HS2 is highly likely to compound the dominance of London over the rest of the country. This evidence is based on the distributional implications of major improvements in transport connectivity that indicate a trend towards reinforcing the dominance of the strongest city on a transport network.
For example, in his evidence to the Transport Select Committee on Transport and the economy, Professor John Tomaney of CURDS highlights that, amongst others, Paris and Madrid have gained the most from the creation of high-speed rail networks in Europe. He states that “the impact of high-speed rail investments [that include a dominant capital] on local and regional development are ambiguous at best and negative at worst. It is very difficult to find unambiguous evidence in support of the contentions that are being made by the government about the potential impacts of HS2 on the cities and regions of the UK.”
Interestingly, the Department for Transport seems to agree and state that more than 7 out of 10 of the 30,000 jobs created by HS2 will be in London. Further, these jobs would not all be new but would include those transferred from elsewhere.
The Institute for Economic Affairs say developing high-speed rail routes into London “will be as likely to result in people, jobs and economic activity moving/commuting into the capital city as out of it; and the government does not seem to have considered the case for improving infrastructure on west-east rather than north-south routes (for example, between Manchester and Sheffield).”
It is this lack of consultation on alternative options that means northern business and political support for HS2 has to be treated with caution. HS2 has been the only high-speed rail option placed before northern political and business leaders so they are bound to support it. If there was a choice between HS2 and alternatives such as a trans-Pennine high-speed rail link, support for HS2 may not remain.
Indeed, it is my strong belief that a high-speed trans-Pennine rail link that joins the northern cities together, to create a regional super-city, brings far greater benefits to the north and indeed the nation. Research completed for a high-speed magnetic levitation rail line linking the northern cities proposed in 2004 suggests connecting up the north might create such a regional super-city better capable of competing with London. Most importantly, it found these benefits are undermined if the north is first connected to London - as with current HS2 proposals.
Far from reducing regional disparities it appears HS2 actually risks undermining the prospects of a balanced economy. The stakes for the socio-economic future of Yorkshire could not be higher.
