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Britains Transport Infrastructure - High Speed Two

Document Summary

Following the Oral Statement of 15 January 2009 on Britain's transport infrastructure this document contains details of the formation of the company High Speed Two.

This document was published on 11th March 2010 by Department for Transport.

It was written by Department for Transport.

The original document format was PDF File, and comprised 24 pages.The original document can be found here.

This document was kindly sourced from Department for Transport and is in our Strategy documents collection. It was added to the Archive on 18th September 2011 by the Archivist.

Copyright Information

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" Now is the time for us to be planning for Britain's transport, including rail infrastructure requirements, into the 2020s. Large infrastructure projects including wholly new rail lines require a long lead time (both the Channel Tunnel Rail Link and Crossrail had lead times of approximately 20 years), which is why we asked Network Rail last year to examine the case for one or more wholly new rail lines. In October 2008 the National Networks Strategy Group was established, chaired by Andrew Adonis, to steer this work. The Group is also directing work on rail electrification and on priorities for investment in our motorway network.

Network Rail's initial work has pointed to a strong case for an entirely new rail line in the corridor from London to the West Midlands. Such a line would enable faster and enhanced services to be run on new and existing lines to Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and other destinations in the north of England and Scotland, cutting journey times and increasing capacity substantially. In the South, any new line could connect to a new Heathrow International interchange station on the Great Western main line, providing a direct 4-way interchange between the airport, the new north-south line, existing Great Western rail services and Crossrail into central London.

Additional capacity provided through a new line would relieve overcrowding on the existing West Coast line. This is not only England's principal inter-urban express route; it also carries heavy local commuter traffic and freight services. On present forecasts this section of the West Coast main line will become overloaded south of Rugby by about 2025.

The successful experience in planning Crossrail and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link - High Speed 1 - was underpinned by new companies established early on to ensure that the right decisions were taken after full consideration and thorough study of technical and financial issues.

The Government is therefore creating a new company, High Speed Two, to comprise a non-executive chairman, Sir David Rowlands, and a small number of full-time staff, led by a chief executive.

High Speed Two's purpose is to help consider the case for new high speed services from London to Scotland. As a first stage we have asked the company to develop a proposal for an entirely new line between London and the West Midlands. To reach a view on this, the company will need to assess the likely environmental impact and business case of different routes in enough detail to enable the options to be narrowed down. We expect work to be completed by the end of the year. The Government will thereafter assess the options put forward for the development of the new line."