CITY MAYOR RELEASES STATEMENT FOLLOWING NEWS THAT HS2 IN THE NORTH IS TO BE SCRAPPED

Salford City Mayor - Paul Dennet has responded to the news that PM Rishi Sunak announced that the HS2 would be scrapped at the Conservative Party Conference, held in Manchester this week.

The high speed rail route between North and South would have bridged the gap, allowing quick and easy travel between the Capital of the North and the Capital of the South.

The cancellation of the line and subsequent alternative packages being mooted, have left more questions than answers, with no clear path evidently ahead for Northern rail travel.

In a statement released this evening, the Mayor, said:

"Today the Prime Minister has unfortunately confirmed our worst fears that the once in a lifetime opportunity to improve passenger and freight rail in the city-region is being scrapped. The decision to end High Speed 2 (HS2) at Birmingham will only exacerbate our already unbalanced economy after years of under-investment in transport infrastructure, hamper the economic and industrial development of Greater Manchester and the North and further undermine the Government's alleged commitment to levelling-up.

"It is a situation that those living in London and the South East just do not have to face, as a consequence of the Treasury's methodology for allocating public money which often prioritises already overheated development and investment markets outside of Greater Manchester and the North.

"Everyone knows the North has historically suffered from chronic under-investment for many years and cancelling HS2 to Manchester will hold back the northern economies for generations to come, at a time when investment in HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) and transport infrastructure is needed now more than ever.

"The North is now set to pay the price of the Government's mismanagement of the major infrastructure project of our time and lay bare a lack of ambition and vision for the future.

"The trade-offs promised on investment in electrifying lines and quicker journeys to Liverpool, Sheffield, Bradford and Hull, come with no detail, timetable or certainty and no plan which will move the country forward on net zero.

"These trade-offs are also being mooted at a time when here in Salford and Greater Manchester, all our railway stations are far from being accessible; the additional platforms at Salford Central to enable larger trains to stop have been paused and the frequency of train services calling at our stations are hampered by network constraints such as the Castlefield corridor and freight and passenger rail using the same network. Despite the feat of engineering that is the Ordsall Chord, this investment continues to remain significantly under-utilised.

"Today's news will only further impact the myriad of network, capacity and time-tabling issues we're already grappling with in Salford but it also serves to further highlight the rhetoric and reality from the current Government when it comes to levelling-up and transport investment in Greater Manchester and the North."