High Speed Rail

High Speed Rail is now very much on the agenda following the successful opening of HS1 to St Pancras International in 2007. The Railway Forum believes that now is the time to plan for domestic high speed rail to benefit the English Regions with the eventual possibility of a North-South Line linking London and Scotland.

Current demand projections indicate that the southern sections of the three main inter city routes into London (West Coast, Midland Main, and East Coast) become congested in the middle part of the next decade and that by the end of the following decade the entire West Coast Route becomes saturated.

The completion of High Speed 1 (HS1) from the Channel Tunnel to St. Pancras International in November 2007 which has brought the journey time from London to Paris down to two and a quarter hours has demonstrated the overwhelming benefits of high speed rail not only in terms of journey time reduction, but also capacity enhancement and economic regeneration.

Now is the time to start planning for domestic high-speed rail.

The Government's White Paper published last year say that the issue of a new north-south high-speed routes is 'not a decision that need or should be taken now'. Yet this ignores the fact that it has taken nearly twenty years to plan and construct the 68 miles of HS1. There are issues with land use planning and route safeguarding that mean that a decision must be taken soon if we are to enjoy the benefits of high speed rail in the 2020's.

We very much welcome the proposed alignment of transport strategy periods (TSPs) and rail control periods (CPs) that is proposed to apply from 2009-2014 onwards. This should allow for a rational choice between options or a combination of options for longer distance transport corridors such as road-pricing and/or high-speed rail.

HS1 has facilitated the development of the Thames Gateway both at Stratford and North Kent as well as assisting the economic regeneration of East Kent. It has also enabled Ashford to be designated as a major housing growth point. With the Government having identified the need for a further three million new houses to deal with the affordability crisis in Britain, should we be so quick to dismiss the potential of high-speed rail in the building of sustainable communities? High-Speed rail also has the potential as evidenced by the experience in the rest of Europe to reduce the economic disparity between London and the rest of the country, as well as reducing the demand for domestic aviation particularly if a new line were to be built with a connection for longer haul passengers at Heathrow.

Contrary to the view expressed in the Eddington Report that High Speed Rail is the 'pursuit of icons' we believe it is an essential part of transport policy over the next thirty years.