British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced this Wednesday that he would scale back a major infrastructure project for the country, a high-speed train line that was intended to open up the north of the country but whose cost had skyrocketed.
“I cancel the rest of the HS2 project,” declared the Conservative head of government during a speech at his party conference in Manchester (northern England). “Instead, we will reinvest every penny, £36 billion (€41 billion, editor’s note), into hundreds of new transport projects,” he promised. “What we really need is better transport links in the north” and this “will be our priority,” Rishi Sunak insisted during a speech at the Conservative Party’s annual conference.
“A project whose cost has more than doubled”
To justify his decision, the Prime Minister stated that “HS2 is the latest example of the old consensus” and “the result is a project whose cost has more than doubled and suffered repeated delays.” The Prime Minister confirmed in particular that he intended to promote a railway project already underway to improve connections between the main economic centers of the North, which will reduce travel times between Manchester, Bradford, Sheffield and Hull, on lines electrified.
Although London’s setbacks are very poorly received by elected officials in the north of England, who accuse the Government of failing to fulfill its promises to the most economically disadvantaged regions, the leader also listed a long list of urban transport projects, buses or improvements of trams and road connections. .
HS2 (High Speed 2), a second high-speed line project in the United Kingdom after that carried by the Eurostar to the Channel Tunnel (HS1), was originally intended to connect the British capital with Birmingham and then with Manchester and Leeds. It will finally stop after Birmingham.
Source: BFM TV
