New plans for a high-speed railway line between Birmingham and Manchester are reportedly under consideration.
The Government is reportedly considering giving the green light for a new high-speed rail line – dubbed “HS2-light” – to run between Birmingham and Manchester.
This link would be a substitute for the original HS2 line between the cities which Rishi Sunak cancelled in October 2023 in a bid to cut spiralling costs.
Regional leaders have been pushing for an alternative to the scrapped leg of HS2 in a bid to increase rail capacity north of Birmingham.
The Transport Secretary has also strongly signalled that the southern leg of the HS2 line between Birmingham and London, which is currently under construction, is likely to be extended to London Euston station.
The previous government had set out plans for the project to reach Old Oak Common in west London, with the final stretch between that station and Euston to be funded by private investment.
But Louise Haigh said it made “absolutely no sense to build a £66bn high-speed line between Old Oak Common and Birmingham”.
Why is a new ‘HS2-light’ line needed?
Last month, the Prime Minister said he was in discussions with the mayors of Manchester and the West Midlands over their proposal to build a new, slower rail line between the UK’s second and third largest cities.
The two regional leaders believe a new rail line could be built more quickly and at a fraction of the cost compared to the original northern leg of HS2.
A report produced last month by a private consortium pushing for a new rail line, led by engineering giant Arup, said building a new link between the Midlands and the North West was critical to enhance capacity for passengers and freight moving between the regions.
A major factor driving the need for an alternative rail solution is the expected “capacity crunch” on the West Coast mainline once HS2 trains begin operations in the 2030s.
Without dedicated high-speed tracks beyond Birmingham, HS2 trains will share tracks with existing services, potentially reducing overall rail capacity between Birmingham and Manchester by 17 per cent, according to the National Audit Office (NAO).
This shortfall could force the Government to either invest in new rail infrastructure or manage demand by discouraging rail travel—both unpalatable options.
A report commissioned by the two mayors last month suggested that an 80km (50-mile) Midlands-North West rail link between the two cities can be built that would deliver 85 per cent of the benefit of HS2’s cancelled second phase, at 60-75 per cent of the costs.
What could ‘HS2-light’ look like?
The proposal spearheaded by the Manchester and West Midland mayors would involve creating a modified, slower version of the original high-speed rail line.
The new section between Birmingham and Crewe would allow for faster travel than the existing West Coast mainline, though not at HS2 speeds.
Trains running on the proposed link would travel at around 185mph, which is slower than the 225mph for HS2 trains running between London and Birmingham.
However, the report commissioned by the two mayors says journey times between London and Manchester would only be 15 minutes slower than the original HS2 proposals – and 30 minutes faster than existing times.
Costs are expected to be lower because slower trains can use more simplified connections with the existing rail network, and savings would be made by using traditional ballasted tracks, rather than the more expensive concrete slab tracks that are required for high-speed rail.
When could the new line be announced?
The Times reports that ministers are considering giving the green light to the new line and that it would be funded by changes to the government’s fiscal rules, which are expected to be announced by Rachel Reeves in her Budget on 30 October.
These changes are expected to free up billions for investment in infrastructure projects, but Government sources told the paper that a final decision on the HS2 alternative may not be made until spring 2025 when the Government will conduct its three-year spending review.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said on Wednesday morning that Transport Secretary Louise Haigh was looking “very seriously” at how to increase rail investment in the north.
Asked about the reports, she told Times Radio: “I think the difficulty that the Transport Secretary and the Chancellor have is that the last government seriously overcommitted to projects that they had no idea how they were going to fund from the public finances, and so it’s meant some very tough decisions.
“I can’t obviously pre-empt what’s going to be in the spending review, which the Chancellor will announce in a matter of weeks.
“But I know it’s something that the Transport Secretary is looking at very seriously.”
But she did suggest that east-west connectivity in the North of England might be a higher priority, adding: “One of the reasons that people suffer absolute misery on the railways in the north is because everything gets snarled up around Manchester because the stations are very old, the platforms aren’t long enough, we simply don’t have the capacity and it causes absolute chaos from east to west.”
One major change to HS2 that could be confirmed in the Budget is whether the first phase of HS2 between London and Birmingham will terminate at Euston.
The Transport Secretary told BBC Radio 5 Live on Tuesday that a decision on where HS2 will end would be “clear soon”, with an announcement set to be made around the time of the Budget.
She said: “Even under the previous government’s chopped and changed and discredited plans for HS2, Euston was always going to be part of the solution.”
