HS2: Scrapping scheme will 'clearly impact' Bolton

Prime minister Rishi Sunak announced earlier this month that his government was scrapping multibillion pound plans to extend the superfast railway line to Manchester.

Subsequent claims the government made that the money could instead be spent on projects like extending the Metrolink to Bolton were since admitted by Mr Sunak himself to be merely “illustrative”, sparking widespread debate.

Bolton Council leader Nick Peel said: “There will clearly be an economic impact on Bolton and on the North West as a result of this decision.

“To this there is undoubtedly no question.”

The idea of extending the Metrolink to Bolton has long been debated (Image: Newsquest)

Labour’s Cllr Peel had been responding to questions put at a recent full meeting of Bolton Council.

He described the package of projects meant to replace HS2 as “very suspect and dodgy” and claimed that they had been “literally drawn up on the back of a fag packet in the pubs and hotels around Manchester” during the recent Conservative Party conference.

Cllr Peel also said that mayors in the North of England, including Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, had been treated with “total disrespect.”

He said: “The whole thing has proven that the government has yet again turned its back of the North of England and it’s a disgrace.”

Questions on the cancellation of HS2 had been put by Bolton Liberal Democrats leader Cllr Roger Hayes, of Smithills.

He said that the reaction had “varied from relief from those who believe it was a waste of money to horror that the North West had been totally betrayed.”

Cllr Hayes said: “I believe that a great opportunity has been missed, not only that we could get to London a bit quicker but also that we’d lost a lot of capacity on our existing lines which would have improved our services greatly.”

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But those sceptical of the HS2 scheme have long claimed that it would primarily have benefited people in London and the South East rather than in the North as its supporters have said.

Bolton West’s Conservative MP Chris Green drew a historical analogy when making this point.

He said: “HS2, I saw, was mainly going to benefit London far more than it was going to benefit anyone else.

“So for all that some politicians and commentators are aghast at HS2 being cancelled, they may say that all roads lead to Rome.

“But I would say that the Romans built those roads for their own benefit, they didn’t build them for the benefit of the Visigoths.”