A Government commitment to deliver the next phase of the HS2 high speed rail network was included in The Queen’s Speech, delivered earlier today (June 21).
Her Majesty’s, usually annual, address to Parliament sets out the Government’s policies and proposed legislative programme for the new Parliamentary session.
Today’s included an intention to bring forward a Parliamentary Bill to deliver the next phase of the planned HS2 rail network, Phase Two.
Royal Assent was granted for the ‘HS2 Phase One Bill’ – to build a line from London (Euston Station) to Birmingham and the West Midlands – in February this year (2017). Preparation work is now underway and major construction is set to begin in 2018.
Government wishes to see the single HS2 track then split east and west, in a Y-shaped formation.
The ‘HS2 Phase 2a Bill’ would, according to today’s speech, provide the powers to build and operate the next stage of the HS2 network, from the end of the Phase One route at Fradley, just north of Birmingham, to a junction with the West Coast Main Line just south of Crewe.
A further line proposed – HS2 Phase 2b – would provide an ‘eastern leg’ route, from the West Midlands extending north-eastwards to Leeds.
Last November (2016) the Government confirmed the preferred route it would be taking forward for this eastern leg would be one passing through the D2N2 LEP area (of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire). This route includes plans for an East Midlands ‘hub’ station at Toton, Nottinghamshire, and another station and HS2 maintenance depot at Staveley, north Derbyshire.
HS2 Ltd, the agency behind the HS2 network, held public consultation events, to give people along the proposed Phase 2 HS2 route more details about it, across Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire early this year (2017).
D2N2 – the private sector-led Local Enterprise Partnership promoting economic growth across Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire – believes HS2 would be a catalyst for growth in its area, as well as improving connectivity to the West Midlands, the Northern Powerhouse and London.
The East Midlands HS2 Strategic Board – a partnership of the region’s local authorities, businesses and LEPs (including D2N2) – has been formed to ensure the area reaps the maximum economic benefits associated with the eastern leg’s development.
It launched its initial Growth Strategy Report (pictured) last November (2016), in which it detailed some of the benefits that the East Midlands is set to receive from HS2, including:
- the creation of 74,000 (direct and indirect) jobs;
- £4billion GVA (gross value added, the measure of the value of goods and services an area produces) added to the East Midlands’ economy by 2042.
After extensive consultation with the East Midlands business and other communities, a more detailed Growth Strategy Report is due to be submitted to Government this summer (2017).
For more information on the work of the D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership see its website at www.d2n2lep.org/Home
Media requiring more information about D2N2 can contact D2N2 Communications Manager Sean Kirby on 0115 957 8749 or email: sean.kirby@d2n2lep.org
