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From somewhere in the distance comes the sound of shovels being readied and pencils being sharpened, as contractors prepare for the start of work on High
Speed 2. With the parliamentary process under way, the UK is on the cusp of building a new north-south main line for the first time in a century.
However, long before any ceremonial sods are turned, authorities along the route have begun to prepare for HS2’s impact. South Yorkshire councils and Leeds City Council have become enthusiastic champions of the project, lobbying hard for their voices to be heard in the design process. They believe benefits can be won - and lost - in the details of connectivity and precise routing.
Doncaster, while not on the line, fought to be the co-host of the new National College for High Speed Rail, training the next generation of engineers. This could welcome students by 2017, just as those shovels hit the ground.
Birmingham will host not only the other part of the college, but also the national construction headquarters (expected to generate 1,500 jobs by itself). In a study published on December 1, international real estate advisor Savills said that improved connectivity brought about by HS2, and the impetus for change this represents, has the potential to reshape the city.
“Birmingham’s time has come both politically and economically,” says Barry Allen, head of Savills’ Birmingham office. “New businesses are already recognising what the city has to offer, and both domestic and international investors are actively seeking opportunities to buy into the development potential. But if the city is to capitalise on the game-changing opportunity HS2 represents, we need a co-ordinated approach that brings together city council and business interests in working towards 2026, when HS2 is scheduled to begin operation.”
The area will, of course, be first to receive high-speed trains from the capital, but the Local Enterprise Partnership (Greater Birmingham and Solihull) isn’t waiting for the arrivals board to light up. Just as Savills has called for, the LEP has published a detailed strategy for how it intends to capitalise on the benefits. Furthermore, it claims those benefits have already begun to flow, with businesses already moving to the city and wider area, citing HS2 as a major influence in their decision.
LEP Chairman Andy Street sums up its position: “The arrival of HS2 in the Midlands is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do something really special. It’s not enough to simply lay tracks and build stations - we must take this chance to create a legacy for the region in terms of regeneration, jobs, skills, economic development and connectivity. We can use the benefits of HS2 to play an even greater role in powering Britain.”
Looking at the bare facts, HS2 seems to have already dealt Birmingham a strong hand. The railway will enter the city from the southeast, trains pausing at an interchange station close to the National Exhibition Centre and Airport, and to where the M42 meets the M6. The line then heads north to reach a triangular junction - one leg heads further north for Leeds and Manchester, the other turns left and follows the M6 into Birmingham itself.
The Curzon Street terminus site is close to Moor Street and Snow Hill stations, and ten minutes walk from the city’s newly refurbished New Street station. On its way to the terminus the railway passes Washwood Heath, where a major depot and the network’s national command and control centre will be located.
So that’s two stations (with the benefit of one being ‘parkway style’ and the other in the city centre), a depot, a control centre, a college and the construction headquarters. Even so, the Local Enterprise Partnership is not taking anything for granted. Its strategy document (a response to the HS2 Growth Task Force of March 2014) is an impressive piece of work, as are the figures trumpeted in the introduction.
It estimates that HS2 will create 104,000 new and safeguarded jobs in the area, 10% of them created for local, unemployed residents. There will be 2,000 apprenticeships, with a prediction that up to 36% of the local population will be qualified to NVQ Level 4+. Overall, it is estimated that the region will deliver £14 billion to the UK economy (in terms of Gross Value Added). And two million residents will be connected to HS2 by public transport.
Pulling multitudinous strands of work together into this cohesive vision has been the task of Craig Wakeman, HS2 programme manager for Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership and Birmingham City Council.
“The objective we were set was to look at the benefits over and above those that will be delivered by HS2 directly. Where we started, on what became a very interesting journey, was looking at the stations and the connections to the stations that we would need to make. But we quickly realised there were a few issues we would need to tackle head on, the most important of which was the promotion of HS2 by the Government had been about the benefit of the travel time to and from London, when in actual fact - from the man on the street view - that bit didn’t mean much.
