The government is trying to pick up steam on High Speed 2 (again) by wheeling out Michael Heseltine to make the case for the project. Tonight at the Royal Town Planning Institute, the former Transport Secretary will argue that the new line is about spreading prosperity and doing ‘the right thing’ for our country:
‘HS2 is about our country’s competitiveness for a half century or more. It is about so many more people sharing growth that has, for too long, been concentrated on London and the South East. It’s all about drawing together our economy as a whole as well as improving our access to the enlarged, and enlarging, home market of Europe. It is not about 30 minutes off London to Birmingham.’
On the Today programme this morning, Heseltine explained why HS2 is key to reinforcing Britain’s buccaneering spirit:
‘Here’s a really imaginative project in order to try and do something to rebalance the United Kingdom. I personally have given a lot of my time in politics to try and achieve precisely that sense of adventure, that sense of expansion, that sense of can-do back into those great towns of the midlands and the north that made this country in the first place.’
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