A Labour government will have the option of reviving the northern legs of the HS2 rail project, after it emerged it is very unlikely that any land bought by the government for the route will be sold before the general election.
The project was surprisingly axed by Rishi Sunak in his Tory conference speech last year, and Keir Starmer has resisted calls to recommit to the northern phase of the project, blaming in part the fact that the government was “already releasing land between Birmingham and Manchester” bought up for the route.
