New line remains a necessity, but benefits must be explained

摘要

DOUGLAS Oakervee's much-leaked and long-awaited review into High Speed 2 finally saw daylight on February 11, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the project was going ahead. Oakervee's work runs to 130 pages, with its most important recommendation being that the line from London to Birmingham be built in its entirety beyond to Manchester and Leeds. And his report concludes that the original rationale for HS2 still holds. "There is a need for greater capacity and reliability on the GB rail network as a whole," it says. Furthermore, it notes that there are no shovel-ready alternatives, saying that if HS2 were to be cancelled "many years of planning work would be required to identify, design and develop new proposals".