High-speed hopes

Mar 3 2010 by Andrew Sugden, The Journal

THE year 1821 was an auspicious one for the North East. The first Stockton & Darlington Railway Act was drawn up which was "an Act for making and maintaining a railway or tramroad from the River Tees at Stockton to Witton Park Colliery, with several branches there from, all in the County of Durham".

Four years later, and the only 26 miles of public railroad open anywhere in the world stretched through the Durham countryside and permanently established this part of the globe as an industrial innovator.

The railways have undergone tremendous change over the years but, essentially, they remain true to their roots – a means to get passengers from A to B along a prescribed route.

The things that have had the greatest impact on travellers are the improvements to rolling stock we travel in, which has seen journey times tumble from the two hours it took to complete the first 12 miles of the Stockton & Darlington Railway at its inception to the current Darlington to London journey of approximately 2.5hrs.

The two-hour journey time is now becoming increasingly symbolic and has become the battle line for the latest innovation in the railways – the introduction of High Speed Rail.

HSR is a much-welcomed and essential improvement to the UK’s rail network. The benefits it will bring businesses will be immense, and so it is essential that the London to Scotland link goes through our region. Worryingly, early drafts of the route proposed by Network Rail have conspicuously missed the North East. Revisions of the plans have seen our region included, but very much as an afterthought.

When the Government announces its plans – which we hear are imminent – it is crucial that the North East features. Clearly, it would be a travesty to allow the North East to not be an integral part of High Speed Rail. The impact on inward investment would be dangerous and the failure to recognise both the need and benefit of the connectivity it would bring would be appalling.

Businesses and passengers alike have to make it known that the North East will not be left in the slow lane. We all have a duty to make it clear to the politicians, mandarins and quangos involved that our region must be integrated into plans from the outset. If not, we will be placed at a major economic disadvantage to other parts of the UK.

Andrew Sugden is NECC director of membership and policy