Dawn Baxendale Birmingham HS2 Warning Midlands Coventry Council Martin Reeves Andrew Pritchard East Midlands

Work on HS2 is not too far advanced for the project to be cancelled, the Chair of the umbrella body for East Midlands Councils has warned.

Speaking on the Midlands Development Conference East Midlands Councils Chair Andrew Pritchard, said: “The project is not so far down the track that it couldn’t be cancelled. We need to speak very clearly to ministers that this is a really critical piece of national investment that must be delivered.”

But Anthony May, Chief Executive of Nottinghamshire County Council expressed more confidence that HS2 will not be cancelled: “I’ve got more faith and trust in politicians, if the new government’s first act is to turn it off at Birmingham, you can imagine the amount of lobbying that will fall on Whitehall.” [emaillocker id=”71749″]

May, who is also Chair of the Midlands Engine partnership’s operating board, suggested that the project could be rebranded with a greater emphasis on the extra capacity that it will deliver, rather than speed: “Capacity is massively important because rail usage has rocketed and we still have a Victorian network and can’t square that circle anymore.”

Dawn Baxendale, Chief Executive Officer of Birmingham City Council, said that delivering nationally critical important infrastructure decisions is a “real problem” in the UK.

“HS2 isn’t just about the midlands, it’s for all of the country. We have to be in a better shape after Brexit and this is a fundamental lynchpin in delivering that. The signs coming out of central government at the moment are fundamentally undermining the economic viability of this country. We are going to keep digging until we are told otherwise,” she said.

She was backed up by Martin Reeves, Chief Executive of Coventry City Council, who said: “The country is playing ridiculous catch up for decades of non-investment.”

Reeves added that while London is the UK’s only global city, it is relatively small in a global context and that the “jury is out” on the Midlands Engine.

But economic development can no longer rely on the trickle down of wealth, which has underpinned policy during the last four decades, he said: “We have to do something fundamentally different but that means giving something up: ceding power will get some way towards tackling some of the problems.”

And the government will increasingly focus on ensuring that growth is inclusive, partly in response to wider social shifts, said May: “Young people are getting incredibly cynical about concrete, steel and tarmac as the answer to our economic problems. Clearly, we have to do something different in the future,” he said, adding that public investment will have to be targeted in a different way. It’s going to be a range of things and a national endeavour to change the way this country develops.”

East Midlands Councils’ Pritchard said that investing in one part of the midlands will benefit the whole of the region, giving as an example the upcoming launch of the rail hubs project that will relieve bottlenecks on the train network around Birmingham.

He said: “Interventions around Birmingham will have benefits as far as Lincoln because it enables a significant increase in east-west connections across the region. Just because investment goes in one place doesn’t mean it won’t benefit other places.”

Pritchard said the Midlands Engine allows the region to discuss its priorities with government pointing out that it had succeeded in securing investment in last autumn’s budget got £70m for the DNRC (Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre) and £2m for the Toton hub.

But he urged the government to take on board the work carried out by local councils to agree regional road investment priorities which are due to be submitted to ministers in July: “If we have done the hard yards and put forward a cohesive programme of investment, it is important that the government reflects those priorities in its decision making.”

And devolution of powers to a combined authority, like the Greater Manchester model, does not work in the east midlands context due to the diverse nature of the region’s geography, which consists of a series of cities and towns rather than a single large conurbation, Pritchard said: “We have to think how we develop a governance that is appropriate to that geography.”

Recalling her experience as the chief executive of a south coast local authority, Birmingham’s Baxendale said that partnership working between councils can work in the absence of a combined authority if councils can build a regional or sub regional consensus: “Unless you build consensus at regional or sub-regional level, we will always lose. We can do it without a combined authority.”

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