https://sputnikglobe.com/20231004/british-pm-scraps-high-speed-rail-line-to-manchester-in-party-conference-speech-1113924075.html

British PM Scraps High Speed Rail Line to Manchester in Party Conference Speech

British PM Scraps High Speed Rail Line to Manchester in Party Conference Speech

Sputnik International

The HS2 rail project was hailed as the centrepiece of former PM Boris Johnson's 'levelling-up' plan to win long-term support from voters in the north of England. But the scheme went way over budget and drew widespread opposition.

2023-10-04T15:49+0000

2023-10-04T15:49+0000

2023-10-04T17:01+0000

world

rishi sunak

manchester

high-speed rail

high-speed railway

british conservative party

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British prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced the scrapping of a high-speed rail link to Manchester in a speech in the city itself.The bombshell in his address to the last day of the ruling Conservative Party's annual conference on Wednesday had been widely trailed to the media beforehand — prompting a protest by Andy Burnham, the Labour Party mayor of Greater Manchester.Sunak said the High Speed 2 (HS2) rail link was "the ultimate example of the old consensus" and that "the facts have changed" since the COVID-19 pandemic saw a major shift to video-conferencing for business and workplace meetings.But he pledged that the £36 billion saved would be ploughed back into a hundreds of transport infrastructure projects to better connect northern and midlands cities with one another.They include a trans-Pennine link connecting Manchester to Bradford, Sheffield and Hull in Yorkshire in 84 minutes, a rapid transit link between Manchester and Liverpool and a tram network for Leeds, the so-called 'London of the North'.And he list a series of roads slated for upgrades, including the A1, Britain's longest route from London to Edinburgh — a possible hint that decades-old plans to widen it to a six-lane motorway for most of its length would finally be realised.Sunak's announcement drew thunderous applause from the gathered party delegates.Construction work on HS2, approved under David Cameron's Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition government, finally got underway in the autumn of 2020. Then-PM Boris Johnson hailed it has the centrepiece of his "levelling-up" agenda to bring prosperity to the north, where his party won around 50 previously-safe seats from Labour in the 2019 election.The scheme was welcomed by some businesses but opposed by environmentalists and local residents, who argued it would destroy the beauty of the countryside and destroy natural habitats. Sunak also announced a New Zealand-style progressive age-based ban on smoking that will eventually prohibit the habit for all Britons — a pledge which drew a lacklustre response from the crowd along with his warning that taxes could not be cut until inflation falls.But he received a more enthusiastic response when he vowed to oppose the transgender agenda of abolishing single-sex spaces and services — playing on Labour weakness on the issue which has alienated many women supporters."We shouldn’t get bullied into believing that people can be any sex they want to be," Sunak declared. "They can’t; a man is a man and a woman is a woman. That’s just common sense."

manchester

2023

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british prime minister rishi sunak, high speed 2 rail cancelled, tory party conference in manchester