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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Business
Chris Blackhurst

Did the North even want HS2 in the first place?

Who is this talking? “The difficult thing with HS2 is the chopping and changing. You can’t build infrastructure on this scale in this way. But we argue that it’s not the right solution for Manchester anyway. We should have north-south and east-west links but if you pinned me to a wall, I would prioritise cross-northern travel. Liverpool and Manchester pioneered rail travel in the 19th century and we don’t have functional rail travel between the two cities in the 21st century!”

It was Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, in an interview with Robert Crampton of the Times, published on February 11, 2023. So eight months ago, Burnham said, “it’s not the right solution for Manchester anyway… if you pinned me to a wall, I would prioritise cross-northern travel.”

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