JERRY Marshall, Chairman of AGAHST (Action Groups Against High Speed Two) gives his reaction below to the Government’s decision on High Speed 2 today.

Justine Greening has said that she would make a rational decision on HS2 and she clearly has not. If she had taken a cold hard look at HS2 she would see that it is a disaster waiting to happen.

HS2 will cost every household in Britain £1,700 and based on Government figures will never pay for itself. The construction will wreak untold environmental damage and exacerbate rather than close the north-south divide. The technology required to run it safely does not yet exist, and high speed train operators doubt the feasibility of the projected number of trains per hour.

The government’s promise to ameliorate environmental damage by providing additional tunnelling is empty as they have already said that the £500 million extra cost will have to come from the existing budget. This will just lead to under-funding elsewhere on the line.

It is ludicrous that the government is still going ahead with a plan that, in the current economic climate, could see four jobs lost for every one created. It’s too late in the day to prevent £800m being spent on consultants in this parliament alone, but we will continue to oppose this scheme using all the means at our disposal. HS2 should not happen and will not happen.

The principal reasons why AGAHST opposes HS2 are: 1. Waste of money and wrong priority – a £32 billion vanity project that costs every family over £1,700 is the wrong priority for us and at a time of austerity. It’s a railway for the rich paid for by everyone. Two thirds of the British population think it is the wrong spending priority.

2. The business case is flawed – the benefits are exaggerated (relying on time savings that assume people don’t work on trains) and demand is over-optimistic (based on growth over 35yrs). A realistic payback is more like 50p for every £1 spent.

3. HS2 can’t cure the north south divide – the evidence from experts and DfT/HS2 Ltd actually points to London and the south benefiting most in terms of jobs and growth.

4. Better alternatives to improving our railways – cheaper, more cost effective and greener ways to meet our capacity needs can be rolled out as required – benefiting more people, more quickly.

5. The environmental case has collapsed – ultra high speed is not ‘green’; passengers say faster speeds are not a priority and CO2 emissions will not be reduced, as freed-up domestic landing slots will be replaced by long haul flights. Irreplaceable landscapes will be lost.

6. The call for extra capacity is unfounded – Research carried out by HS2 Action Alliance and verified by independent research firm CRT Viewpoint, has discovered that long distance trains leaving Euston during the week day evening peak period (16.30 to 18.59) on the West Coast Main Line (WCML) had an average occupancy rate or load factor of just 56 percent.

This directly contradicts claims by the DfT and HS2 Ltd that the lack of capacity on the WCML is the central reason why the £32 billion HS2 rail line needs to be built.