Greg Mulholland – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2015-10-27.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, for what reasons the proposal from High Speed UK on high speed rail has been rejected.

Mr Robert Goodwill

The proposals suggested by High Speed UK are similar to the Reverse ‘E’ considered by HS2 Ltd in their 2010 report submitted to the Government on the demand and business case analysis of the alternative proposals. It was considered that this proposal could not offer better journey times from London/Birmingham to Manchester/Liverpool than HS2 trains continuing to the north-west from Lichfield via the West Coast Main Line. Ministers considered the advice presented and views from a wide range of sources, and based on the evidence the decision was taken to proceed with the ‘Y’ shaped network.