10.11.16
Greengauge 21 calls for HS2 to ‘get serious’ about service plans
HS2 Ltd should ensure that key northern and midland locations are not disadvantaged by the high-speed line by improving service plans such as adding a new hourly service via Stoke-on-Trent, high-speed rail consultancy Greengauge 21 advised in a new blog.
The blog was written in response to Changing Britain: HS2 Taking Root, HS2 Ltd’s latest report which highlights the steps taken by nine cities and towns across the north of England so far to ensure that they gain the full benefits of HS2.
Greengauge 21 said that it makes ‘no sense’ to exclude Stoke from current HS2 service plans as the hourly service planned between Stafford and London cannot use the Phase 2A section, adding 15 minutes to the journey time. It also questioned the impact that current plans would have on stops in Lancashire, Oxenholme and Penrith which would suffer from compromised connectivity.
“Welcome though these developments [in Changing Britain: HS2 Taking Root] are, HS2 Ltd can – and other key agencies and local authorities should – go further,” the blog said.
“It is not enough to plan HS2’s infrastructure. It is time to get serious as well about service plans, about access arrangements and supporting new spatial developments and industrial strategies across the broad part of the country that HS2 will serve.”
Greengauge 21 outlined four developments that it believes need to happen over the coming months. In addition to improved service plans for key northern and midland centres, it advised giving a single body responsibility for all northern HS2 development such as Transport for the North (TfN), which is due to become the first sub-national transport body in 2017.
The blog also noted that city authorities and LEPs should develop firmer plans to ensure that their programmes for wider economic development around stations are deliverable, and the need to give the HS2 train-fleet a more attractive name than ‘classic-compatible’, the phrase currently used for trains due to offer HS2 services beyond the planned new infrastructure.
Predicting potential objections that additional hourly services would require further train paths to London, Greengauge 21 argued that it would be possible to use the spare hourly paths which had been allocated to the Heathrow spur, an idea scrapped in 2015, or combine and divide train carriages at Crewe or Birmingham Interchange.
In any event, Greengauge 21 said that additional hourly services would ‘of course increase HS2 benefits and improve HS2’s business case’.
Greengauge 21 have been vociferous in their support for bringing HS2 to Stoke-on-Trent. A report published by the consultancy in August 2014 found that Stoke and Staffordshire could be key beneficiaries of the HS2 scheme, advocating for the route to travel through there as part of the government’s preferred route to Crewe.