UK govt unveils planned route for second phase of HS2; awards contracts

15th Nov 2016 08:36

(ShareCast News) - The UK government has published the route for the second phase of the HS2 rail line from Crewe to Manchester and the West Midlands to Leeds.The high-speed link plan for the controversial £55bn project, published by the department for Transport, did not include a final decision over the location of a new station either in or near Sheffield. A final decision will be made next year.Transport Secretary Chris Grayling also announced on Tuesday that the government had a awarded a £900m contract to start work on the first phase of the line between London and Birmingham next year. The full network is expected to be operational by 2033.The contract, split across three areas - north, south and central - were awarded to Costain Group, Skanska Construction, Morgan Sindall, BAM Nuttall, Ferrovial Agroman, Laing O'Rourke Construction and J Murphy & Sons.Grayling said no firm decision had been taken on the Sheffield station. The government's preferred option is for the route to run east of Sheffield "with a connection to the existing station with the main route be moved further east"."The issue has been, do we build a line that passes on the edge of Sheffield to a very complex new station at Meadowhall alongside the shopping centre," Transport Secretary Chris Grayling told the BBC."Or do we do what Sheffield City Council requested, which is to take trains into the centre of Sheffield to Sheffield Midland station."Grayling said this was the government's preferred option as it would save around £1bn."It's the first time we've published that route formally. It has to be consulted upon, but that is our provisional judgement that that is what should happen," he added.He acknowledged that there would be opposition to the project from people who would lose their homes along the proposed route."Clearly we have to treat people in the right way. Of course if you are building a system that will transform the capacity of our transport system and create new opportunities for our freight trains and commuter services on our existing network, of course some people are going to be affected," he said."We want to do the right thing by those people but of course it's not possible to make the kind of investment we need in the future of our transport system without some impact on people."On the western route, the line will continue north from Crewe to Manchester Airport on to Manchester centre, where a new station will be built next to Manchester Piccadilly, the city's main station.There will also be a connection to Liverpool and to the existing West Coast main line allowing HS2 services to continue north, serving stations to Glasgow and Edinburgh.