Money diverted from HS2 to transport projects will transform local roads, Lichfield’s MP has said.
The controversial high speed rail scheme’s northern stretch was scrapped last year due to spiralling costs.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said money earmarked for the stretch north of Handsacre would be diverted to support local transport initiatives instead.
Conservative MP Sir Michael Fabricant said the move meant £8.3billion would be reinvested across the country over the next 11 years.
“This year, Staffordshire County Council’s highways will receive an additional £3,188,000.
“This money will, over time, transform the condition of local roads, allowing all road users smoother, faster, and safer trips – paid for with savings delivered by the Prime Minister’s decision to cancel HS2 Phase 2.
“All HS2 savings that would have been spent in the North or the Midlands will still be spent here. That is a 30% increase over last year and the total indicative additional funding allocation over the next 11 years will be £186,273,000 – a phenomenal sum of money.”
Sir Michael Fabricant
As part of the deal to move the money to local schemes, councils will be required to publish details of how it will be spent.
This will include a summary of additional resurfacing work the funding will be used for over the next two years, with a long-term plan made available later in the 2024-25 period.
Sir Michael said:
“It is well known that I welcomed the Prime Minister’s decision to cancel the second stage of HS2 and I am pleased to see there will be a clear cancellation dividend.
“In the meantime, I await with interest what proposals the two Andy’s – Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands, and Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester – will be making regarding the upgrading the West Coast Main Line north of Handsacre to take full advantage of high speed trains being able to run at speed on those existing lines.”
Sir Michael Fabricant
Transport Secretary Mark Harper said “every penny” committed to the Midlands would be spent in the region, while money saved from changes to London Euston would be spread across all regions.
“Lichfield is covered by a single local authority in receipt of this additional funding – Staffordshire.
“It is important that residents benefit in full from this funding uplift, and ensure that Staffordshire is putting the money to good use while complying with the new reporting requirements that the Government has introduced.”
Mark Harper
The irony being that it is the increase in construction traffic and normal traffic diverted from regular routes due to HS2 that has put serious stress on local roads. The money is only repairing much of what HS2 has destroyed in the first place.
The figure that is quoted gives about another £600 per mile over the Staffordshire road network. Fabricant is talking as if it will all be spent in Lichfield
About 600 pounds per mile over the whole of Staffordshire over the timescale. It will not touch the surface but sounds good to Tory worshippers
And what about the billions invested thus far, only for the project to have been killed off? Whether it’s crumbling schools, honours for party donors, millions in an absurd Rwanda deal, polluting local rivers with sewage, ministers involved in tax avoidance, running the NHS into the ground, record borrowing, the lowest standards of living since the 1940s, child poverty increases, rough sleeping increases, high taxes, or instructing local councils to sell local buildings……one thing is absolutely for certain.
We cannot let the Conservatives back in again. The country literally cannot take much more.
Accountability? No this is politics and all sense of reality is suspended. In any case the money mentioned would hardly fix the pothole problem.
The disingenuous declaration of funds and how they will help everyone is a self evident lie. The money is rarely received. Improvements are always underfunded.
HS2 will have lined the pockets of many already millionaires. The sums from the supposed savings have shrunk from billions to low millions, or even thousands.
Politics may not be corrupt in the conventional sense of the word but it is certainly dishonest.
If you believe a word of this, I’ve got some magic beans that I’d love to sell you.
No it won’t Staffordshire spends around £50m a year on roads. This extra 6.4% won’t even cover the scale of inflation costs in the construction industry. Don’t take people for fools with with your spin. You have taken hundreds of millions out of local government and then claim credit for giving a tiny bit back.
It is like a pickpocket who steals £200 from you and then gives you £12.80 back to make you feel grateful and sells it as a positive to the victim.
The value for money aspect of the HS2 project was always questionable. The bizarrely truncated high speed scheme is now so obviously not value for money one wonders why the government continues to pour £billions into it. With the national debt now approaching £3 trillion, more than doubling in the last 14 years, a complete reappraisal and down grade from the original high speed specifications could give increased capacity and significant savings. Still, it’s only money!
So we can expect all the potholes to be repaired then! I won’t live in hope.
More utter nonsense from our inept, mendacious apology of an MP. The rail project is still costing millions and there will be no real extra funds for the city. I am old enough to remember MPs who just spun stories. Now we have to suffer those who prefer fantasy to the reality we are actually experiencing.
Resurfacing work over the next two years????? We will see!! How many more drivers will suffer serious problems with their cars before this is sorted. Average working class ‘Joe’ dumped on again. And dont get me started about the white elephant that is HS2………I could go on and on!!!
The roads of Staffordshire have been allowed to get into an unfit state under Conservative leadership.
The additional funds will be wasted in the same way previous funds have been wasted by SCC.
Time has come to try another party in leadership locally regionally and nationally. Trouble is there appears to be no viable option at the moment.
Given the cancellation of HS2 and probable reductions in local / freight rail services that will follow, I suggest the main long term effects on Lichfield’s roads will be many more vehicles and far worse congestion.
Mr Fabricant repeats the mantra that increased road building speeds up journey times, despite the well known phenomenon of ‘induced demand’, which leads to ever growing congestion and delays.
As the inter-modal shift from rail to road continues, the demands for more roads and wider roads can only increase, destroying far more of the countryside than HS2 and entirely failing to solve the problem.
@ Atrax… At some point of its journey the vast majority of freight finishes on road transport. The warehouse structures slowly ringing our area is proof of this. As the passenger access is not easily available to the HS2 network from this area then there are little time saving advantage.
I do agree with you that the overall impact of transport is likely to get worse. Already train travel is expensive and often miserable. Road travel is similarly disposed.
The train transport system never survived Beeching and is now far too limited. Local and national bus services are massively reduced. Freight has increased exponentially. Development costs, like HS2, make improvements unaffordable. No I don’t have any easy answers.
I feel so depressed with the state of this country, the Great has been taken out of Britain.
No Mr Fabricant this money will NOT transform Lichfield’s roads. I’ve never seen the road’s so damaged and it has cost my husband over £800 for a broken nearside front spring, he always tries desperately to avoid potholes as I have rheumatoid arthritis and it is painful. You cannot report potholes successfully on the Staffordshire CC website the their criteria won’t permit it.
Blasted roadworks everywhere taking ages, HS2 has caused devastion to our once beautiful countryside. Journeys taking much longer as no A38 exit at Streethay, which must be awful for Streethay residents.
No Michael Fabricant people see through ‘your’ election bribes/promises. The cost of living and energy crisis, and the lies that Boris told about Brexit is what the Tories will be remembered for.