Bipartisan Uproar as Government is Rumoured to be Mulling Scrapping of Birmingham-Manchester Segment of HS2

The government is rumoured to be considering scrapping the Crewe to Manchester leg of the HS2 high-speed rail, which was first proposed amid much fanfare in 2009-2010 as the golden ticket to levelling up less affluent parts of the country by connecting North and South.

The backlash has been immediate, with Manchester mayor Andy Burnham telling BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the decision would create a "North-South chasm" and leave the North to contend with "Victorian infrastructure".

Commenting on the impact of such a decision on the parallel Northern Powerhouse Project, Burnham said: "Scrapping HS2 rips the heart out of Northern Powerhouse Rail. Basically, it would leave the north of England with Victorian infrastructure probably for the rest of this century."

Burnham urged Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to meet with him and other stakeholders before taking any decision, saying it was "disrespectful to the people of the North of England" to take a decision without consulting them.

The issue has stirred up significant bipartisan political anger including among Tory donors. George Osborne and Michael Heseltine, both former Conservative chancellors, writing in the Sunday Times, said that scrapping the Manchester leg would be a "gross act of vandalism" and "an act of huge economic self-harm".

This is not the first time ambitions on the HS2 have been scaled back. When the route was unveiled in 2013, the original design was a 'Y' network, with two legs forking at Birmingham, to serve the Northeast and Northwest. The Northwest leg would continue up to Scotland.

Coming down to London, it would be connected to Heathrow Airport and to the HS1, the line connecting London to the Channel Tunnel. In this way, the project had the significant added advantage of continental access.

The core aim of the project, when it was envisioned, was to increase the capacity of the network. The HS2 is the first major rail line to be planned after Victorian times. The plan was to release space for local services by moving intercity journeys between London and the Midlands and the North to a purpose-built track.

A number of express services would then be removed from existing tracks, enabling more local services to run to handle the increasing passenger load.

The recent hint of further shrinking of HS2 plans comes as passenger numbers steadily rise, the data shows. Passenger numbers have risen for seven out of the last eight quarters on record, taking numbers up to 83 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, according to the Office of Rail and Road.

In April, the month for which the latest data exists, passenger numbers were up to 99 per cent of pre-pandemic levels. The consensus is that even with modest growth expectations, the system would stretch to breaking point by the early 2030s.

In the years since the initial planning of the project, the costs of the project have ballooned, a common experience with mega infrastructure projects across the globe. Recent high inflation has not helped matters.

The costs were in part driven up by delays from numerous sources. Local residents and MPs in areas subject to digging and tunnelling swiftly expressed their displeasure. Environmental protests halted the work a number of times. Britain's infamously complex and slow planning system only added to the time lags.

Finally, ground conditions were found to be poorer than expected once construction firms initiated surveying approximately a decade ago.

The project was estimated to cost £37.5 billion in 2009 – around 2.4 per cent of GDP. The latest official estimate, which dates back to 2019, was in excess of £70 billion. Amid the current economic slowdown and high inflation reality, the price tag is understood to be even higher.

Grant Schapps, who is a former transport secretary, hinted at the potential changes whilst talking to the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg. Schapps asked: "Does this still stack up for what the country requires, in terms of where it's spending its resources, and at what time?"

The government is expected to make an announcement on Friday.

The strong opposition to the rumoured change extended to the business community, with the heads of 21 leading industrial businesses writing to Sunak that any u-turn on the plans would be "deeply alarming".

The letter, signed by heads of businesses including British Steel, Heathrow, Siemens and US engineering firm AECOM, went on to say that scrapping the line would be a blow to "the many thousands of businesses in the north-west who are currently investing in the area based on HS2 reaching Manchester".

The letter concluded that "these constant changes to a flagship infrastructure project add to the perceived risk of the UK as a place to do business ... we cannot overstate how harmful this is".

This latest challenge to Rishi Sunak's administration comes as the prime minister is still weathering the storm around watering down his climate policy. Billionaire Phones4U founder and leading Tory donor, John Caudwell, said at the time that he would stop donating to the Conservatives after the "madness" of Sunak's U-turn on climate goals.