High Speed Two

The West Coast Mainline is struggling to provide the capacity needed for inter-city travel between London and the Midlands. To counter this, the Government are proposing to build an entirely new rail track which will be able to carry around a thousand passengers per train. This ‘High Speed’ line will use 400 metre trains that travel at up to 250 miles per hour in order to reduce the time of travel between London and Birmingham to just 31 minutes. A new track is needed because the high-speed trains are larger than conventional trains and so existing tunnels and tracks cannot support them.

The proposed route will run through the Meriden constituency and so I spoke with Lord Adonis, the Transport Minister on 11th March, 2010, the day the proposed route was published, to be briefed fully on the proposal. The route map can be viewed at the link below.

Although I support the project as I believe it will be an asset to the economy of the West Midlands I believe the route should be reviewed and I am concerned that compensation for those affected is not adequate. If the Conservatives were in Government we would reform these blight laws so that people whose property is affected receive proper compensation.

The Conservative Party would also like to extend the route to Leeds and Manchester as well as connecting to High Speed One to the Continue and Heathrow Airport.

I will continue to monitor the progress of the HS2 consultation and press whoever forms a government to review its blight laws.

Map showing the route into Birmingham:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/pi/highspeedrail/hs2ltd/route/?view=Standard

Website of HS2 plc – the company set up by the Government to prepare the proposal:

http://www.hs2.org.uk/

Command Paper prepared by the Government:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/pi/highspeedrail/commandpaper/

High Speed Two

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