Australia’s first high-speed rail link could ease house prices and widen the dating pool, UK expert says

Prof Andrew McNaughton, who is the chair of the UK’s Network Rail High Speed, says planners and governments need to constantly sell the benefits of fast rail to the public even when initial stages have approval and funding. Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

Ensuring Australia’s decades-long high-speed rail project maintains enough support to be built requires the public to be constantly reminded of its benefits, such as easing property prices, providing better job opportunities and even widening the dating pool, a British expert has urged.

Prof Andrew McNaughton, the chair of the UK’s Network Rail High Speed, also warns that the Albanese government’s push to build high-speed rail along Australia’s east coast, starting with a Sydney-Newcastle section, is “doomed” to fail unless planners split the first stage into an even smaller, achievable stretch to Gosford.