Lord Heseltine backs HS2 to 'rebalance' the UK and spread London's 'well-being'

 
HS2 support: Lord Heseltine has backed the scheme to "rebalance" the UK
PA
Robin de Peyer15 January 2014

Lord Heseltine has backed the HS2 rail project to “rebalance” the UK by linking London with the North and Midlands.

The Conservative former deputy prime minister said the private sector can bear the cost of trains to help address concerns over the affordability of the £42billion project.

Despite HS2’s soaring projected costs, Lord Heseltine said the link between Birimingham and London, and later onto Manchester and Leeds, could spread the “well-being feeling” experienced by those in London and the South East.

"Here's a really imaginative project in order to do something to rebalance the United Kingdom," he said.

It could instil a “sense of can-do back in to those great towns of the Midlands and the north that made this country in the first place,” added the Tory grandee.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, he backed the private sector to pay the £7.5bn needed for rolling stock. A further £42.6bn would be needed to meet infrastructure costs.

He also dismissed analysis of the projected costs and benefits of the project as “mumbo jumbo”.

In a speech he is due to give to the Royal Town Planning Institute today, Lord Heseltine will say: “HS2 is about our country's competitiveness for a half century or more.

“All over the world governments are making decisions about a future which they cannot predict but in which they believe."

Labour shadow ministers recently warned there is no “blank cheque” for the project, raising the prospect of them withdrawing support if assurances about its financial viability are not forthcoming.

Professor Henry Overman, of the London School of Economics, and a member of an independent panel assessing HS2’s economic benefits, said the project was “not particularly good value for money”.

But a recent KPMG report said it could generate up to £15bn per year in “productivity gains” for the UK economy as journey times are slashed.

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