Hundreds more HS2 jobs set for Birmingham
THE company responsible for implementing the HS2 high speed rail network could be moving its whole operation to Birmingham, bringing hundreds more jobs to the city.
The BBC is reporting that HS2 Ltd is consulting with its staff in London about relocating to the second city.
HS2 Ltd employs around 800 people at its swanky offices in Canada Square, Canary Wharf – but with greater pressure on the government to trim costs from the project’s estimated £56bn budget a move to Birmingham would help to quell some of the mounting criticism.
Not that the staff would be overly disadvantaged if they were to move because the construction arm of HS2 Ltd is already located in the city’s prime new office development at Two Snowhill.
The move also makes sense from a logistics view because Birmingham is envisaged as the national hub of the high speed rail network.
It will have a major terminus at Eastside Curzon, while the city has also been chosen as the hub for the National High Speed Rail College – the groundbreaking ceremony for which takes place today.
The new college will be a three-storey, 5,700 sq m building, situated on a former Birmingham Science Park site off the A4540 Dartmouth Middleway and Lister Street.
The £22m facility will contain workshops, classrooms, a café and office space alongside a car park and external teaching area containing railway tracks, masts and social space next to the canal.
The college will provide specialist vocational training for future generations of engineers. It represents the next step in developing the skilled workforce needed to build major rail and infrastructure projects of which HS2 is just one.
