High Court set to decide immediate fate of HS2

THE immediate fate of the HS2 high speed rail scheme is set to be determined by the High Court today when judges rule on whether protests against the route and the Government’s handling of the scheme’s consultation process should be upheld.

The court has been presented with a series of legal challenges over the consultation process, in particular that the outcome is flawed because the Government lost hundreds of comment papers during the deliberation period.

If judges rule in favour of the opponents then the £33bn scheme could be delayed some considerable time. The Government could even be forced to re-run the consultation process.

Five judicial reviews have been brought in total by four protest groups. Included in these are protests from several councils, including Warwickshire, which are opposed to the environmental damage they say the railway will inflict on their areas.

There has been a longstanding objection to the new railway in Tory heartlands such as Amersham, while public protests in other areas, including parts of Staffordshire, have also raised questions about the viability of the project.

The high speed project is designed to cut journey times between Birmingham and London to around 49 minutes. Birmingham is intended to be the hub of the high speed rail network and estimates are that it will create 22,000 jobs for the area and be worth £1.5bn per year to the regional GDP.

The 100-mile rail link is currently scheduled to be built between 2016 and 2026.

Earlier this year the Department for Transport outlined the route of the railway north of Birmingham. A Y-shape spur north of Lichfield will allow for phase 2 of the project to go ahead, which will see separate high speed lines linking the network to Manchester and Leeds.