Today’s unveiling of the High-Speed rail route to Leeds has been welcomed by the West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive.
Chairman James Lewis said it would bring a huge boost to the local economy but more investment was needed to maximise benefits to areas such as Calderdale.
“Reducing journey times from London to Leeds to just 80 minutes, and from Birmingham to Leeds to under an hour, freeing capacity on the existing local rail network and, by linking creating the region’s largest integrated transport hub, HS2 will be a huge boost to the local economy,” he said.
“But for the full potential of HS2 to be felt in Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield and Wakefield and the whole City Region as well as Leeds itself, we need to ensure that by the time high-speed trains start arriving we have a local transport network that is ‘HS2-ready’.
“We want to see today’s announcement followed up by a commitment from HS2 Ltd to invest in the existing rail network and unlock the £12bn of benefits identified in the Yorkshire Rail Network Study.
“This would mean quicker local journeys and improved business links, better commuter services, and more capacity for freight.
“It would also ensure that having travelled from London to Leeds in under 90 minutes passengers would not then face a train journey almost half as long again to complete the less than 20-mile journey on to Halifax.”
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