Buckinghamshire County Council to continue opposition to HS2 proposal

Date: 04-10-2010

Buckinghamshire County Council has today voiced its disappointment at the news that the Secretary of State for Transport, Philip Hammond, is supporting a new High Speed Rail system (HS2) inherited from the previous Labour Government. The proposal would build a new line from London to Birmingham and then potentially to the north of England. The estimated cost would be approximately £33 billion.

“We completely support the objective of regenerating the north of England and the key need to invest in our transport infrastructure. However, putting so much money into a single, extremely high cost, prestigious project to arrive twenty minutes earlier in Birmingham is the wrong approach. We need to invest in upgrading and improving our existing infrastructure across the whole country, including in other parts of the UK not on this proposed network such as Scotland, Wales and the South West.” Said Martin Tett, Cabinet Member for Planning and Environment at Buckinghamshire County Council. “Even if the Government does press ahead with this scheme then steps need to be taken to look at options which would avoid irreparable damage to the nationally designated Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and other key landscape along the proposed route. A route through the widest and least spoilt part of the AONB is surely environmental folly.”

The County Council recently passed a motion noting that the Business Case for this project published by the previous Labour Government contained serious flaws and the cost benefit analysis was not proven.