8:48am Saturday 20th March 2010
Exclusive By Rob Merrick
CONSTRUCTION work on the 250mph rail line from London to the North will not begin for nine years, The Northern Echo can reveal.
The revelation triggered accusations that Transport Secretary Lord Adonis misled passengers when he suggested last week that high-speed tracks would be laid from 2017.
Even that 2017 start date was a two-year delay from the original timetable for the high-speed line, which will now not reach Leeds until about 2032.
Criticising the 2019 start date, which is buried in detailed documents about the project, Lib Dem transport spokesman Norman Baker said: “This looks like a sleight of hand from the Government.
There is no need for a nine-year gap between announcing this and starting work. It looks suspiciously like an attempt to put off spending money.”
The delay is a further disappointment to the region, after Lord Adonis rejected plans to run the 250mph trains all the way to the North-East and Scotland as too expensive.
Nevertheless, the line would deliver benefits. It would cut the time from Newcastle to London from three hours and nine minutes to two hours and 37 minutes.
It is also needed to ease looming overcrowding problems on the East Coast Main Line.
Announcing the go-ahead last week, Lord Adonis said it was affordable because construction work “would not begin until after the completion of Crossrail in 2017”.
He said it was only then that people with the necessary skills base and expertise would become available.
A detailed timetable in a Department for Transport document reads: “2019 – construction could start”.
It would then take until 2026 for the line to be built to Birmingham and a further four to six years for twin lines to reach Leeds and Manchester.
Mr Baker said: “I am prepared to accept it is necessary to transfer staff and expertise from the Crossrail project, but that will finish in 2017. There is no excuse for not starting the work on the high-speed line then.”
A Government spokesman said: “We have always said that work will start after the completion of Crossrail, which will not come into full service until 2018.”
Last week, ministers declined to give a commitment to high-speed reaching the North-East. Lord Adonis said it was important to concentrate on a “deliverable project”.
However, the plans leave an option for extensions to the line.
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