TORY CONFERENCE: Former transport minister Steve Norris has rubbished fears that HS2’s rising cost makes it unviable.
Norris, who sits on the Treasury’s growth taskforce, told a Conservative conference fringe event that he was wary of cost benefit analyses of the proposed high-speed rail line connecting London with Birmingham and the North.
He said: “What I am absolutely convinced of is if you can improve connectivity between people and businesses then that will bring real gains.
“The benefit of connectivity in terms of productivity is, frankly, blindingly obvious.”
Norris said that London is the only UK city that achieves a GDP per capita above the national average.
But he added that typically as a city doubles in size it achieves a 4% rise in its GDP.
Imperial College professor Nick Bosanquet said that no one in the workforce above the age of 45 would feel the benefits of HS2.
Norris said: “It won’t be my Zimmer frame that goes on the first train, it will be a little box with my ashes.”
He added: “But the first train does not have to take 25 years to get going, you could take eight or nine years off the schedule and the sooner we invest the sooner we will get the payback.”
Norris also criticised the choice of name for the project, adding that he believed there would be more support if it was called the North-South Link rather than HS2.
Jason McCartney MP, who sits on the Commons transport committee said that articles in the late 1800s used to criticise the London Underground as a rich man’s toy, but he said “thank God we still built it”.
McCartney said HS2 was the equivalent of Crossrail for the rest of the UK.
“London and the UK are competing globally and we cannot afford to have underperforming regional cities.”
nick.whitten@estatesgazette.com
