Boris Johnson urged to build HS2's Yorkshire leg early to create 150,000 jobs

Leeds City Council leader Judith Blake and a Tory council leader in Nottinghamshire have joined forces to press Prime Minister Boris Johnson to back his pledge to ‘build better, faster, greener’ by clearing the way for Phase 2b east of the high-speed network to begin ahead of schedule.

A submission to the Government's plan setting out how HS2 will link with other major infrastructure projects in the North says the area linking Leeds and the East Midlands has seen a £58bn shortfall in funding over the past decade when compared to Greater London.

Leaders in Leeds and Nottinghamshire also say their economies are missing out on billions in potential income every year because they struggle with unreliable and overcrowded trains and communities cut off from good transport links.

In a letter to 10 Downing Street, Coun Blake and Nottinghamshire's Kay Cutts have demanded work on Phase 2b starts early, saying this is critical to government achieving the goals implied by its levelling up agenda.

Coun Blake said: “Making more of the economic potential of the UK’s regions is going to be critical to the nation’s future growth as we seek to both recover from the impact of COVID-19 and confront the challenges of the future.

“But it will not be possible if we continue to rely on failing rail infrastructure which was built more than a century ago. We now need government to reverse historic under-spending and unleash the economic capacity of city regions like Leeds and counties like Nottinghamshire.”

Research commissioned by local authorities in the North and Midlands forms part of their submission to the National Infrastructure Commission’s Rail Needs Assessment for the Midlands and the North, which will form the Government's integrated rail plan (IRP) to be published later this year.

The IRP was announced in February when Boris Johnson confirmed that HS2 would go ahead despite considerable opposition, but would form part of a wider 'High Speed North' scheme including the proposed east-west Northern Powerhouse Rail.

Under present plans, HS2 will create a Y-shaped network linking London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.

But a submission to the IRP by architects Weston Williamson and Partners suggests cancelling the eastern leg connecting Birmingham and Leeds by instead running HS2 through Manchester and across the Pennines.

The councils' submission, carried out by consultancy firm Volterra, says the 13 million population with access to the HS2 Eastern leg is bigger than the combined size of the West Midlands and North West.

It says that any extra capacity added to the existing East Coast Main Line, an alternative to the eastern leg, would be cancelled out by the anticipated rise in demand by the time it was built. And its analysis shows that 14 per cent of the 'eastern leg population' suffers from transport poverty, with a lack of affordable transport to work.

The report says 150,000 extra jobs could be created if the Eastern leg goes ahead, including 90,000 in the Leeds City Region below because of developments on the South Bank in Leeds and the proposed HS2 rail depot south of the city.

In South Yorkshire, where some council leaders oppose the route of the eastern leg, it is estimated that some 23,800 extra jobs could be generated.

Coun Blake said: “If this area had received the same levels of transport investment as Greater London, we would already have been able to deliver the Eastern Leg, and would have begun

Northern Powerhouse Rail and the Trans Pennine Upgrade. So our communities and businesses would already be enjoying the benefits.

“The case for the Eastern Leg is compelling, with a far higher return than other sections. We cannot afford to delay this investment: the sooner we start, the sooner people will benefit and the economy will grow.”

A Department for Transport spokesman said: “Our Integrated Rail Plan is currently looking at how rail projects can work together to deliver better connections and drive economic benefits across the North and Midlands, as quickly as possible. The plan will be published by the end of the year.”