2 Dec 2021
Cheshire East Council proudly announced on 22nd November 2021 ‘…..Cheshire East Council has welcomed …….the government’s Integrated Rail Plan.………..and its support for our shared vision for a Crewe hub station that can accommodate between five to seven HS2 trains per hour.’
But here’s a dilemma, a conundrum, a confusion. In the Integrated Rail Plan report, I can’t find any mention of Crewe Hub HS2 station only that a Crewe Hub Vision / Crewe Northern Connection / enhanced interchange at Crewe will be realised and considered.
Also there is no Crewe Hub station shown on HS2 Ltd’s latest design and construction plans (HS2 June 2021 Update) to be submitted early 2022 to parliament as documents for the Hybrid Bill for the Western Leg of HS2, between Crewe and Manchester.
And what do HS2 Ltd’s latest design and construction plans show?
- No new HS2 Hub Station at Crewe
- No HS2 specified platform or other designs, works, constructions, improvements and alterations at the existing Crewe Station to a HS2 Hub Station
- HS2 rail line in tunnel below Crewe
- HS2 rail line interchanges with West Coast Main Line north and south of Crewe on the surface where HS2 enters the HS2 tunnel under Crewe
So let’s have some clarification:
- Is there going to be a Crewe HS2 Hub Station?
- Is there going to be an actual Hub Station or just an HS2 WCM interchange? Or just an HS2 platform?
- Where is it going to be?
- Who is designing and paying for a Crewe HS2 Hub Station? Crewe HS2 platform/interchange?
- Cheshire East Council?
- Cheshire East Council Tax Payers?
- HS2 Ltd?
- Network Rail?
- Integrated Rail Plan delivery team?
- UK tax payers?
- And finally is the Hybrid Bill for the Western Leg of HS2, between Crewe and Manchester still going to be submitted in early 2022 to parliament?
And what about integrating HS2 into a local Cheshire Integrated Rail Plan? HS2 Ltd has already designed high speed rail interchanges with the West Coast Main Line at Crewe for HS2 to travel north to Lancashire, Cumbria and Scotland. Why not have an integrated rail plan that connects HS2 to Cheshire’s existing rail lines at Crewe that radiate out? North-east to Manchester (and Airport), South-east to the Potteries, South-west to Shropshire, West to Chester and Wales and North-west to Liverpool.
Why not do away with the HS2 tunnel under Crewe? It’ll save the high cost and time of the engineering challenges of tunnelling under Crewe.
Why not do away with the HS2 line north of Crewe? It’ll save the high cost and time of the engineering construction challenges of where the high speed rail track crosses the unstable ground of Cheshire salt district. Plus the cost of 120 years of continuous monitoring and levelling up land prone to sinking.
Why not do away with the two right angle bends at the M56 and Manchester Airport? These bends will certainly slow down the speed of the HS2 high speed rail between Crewe and Manchester.
Here’s two very useful rail links that would definitely integrate and improve Mid Cheshire’s rail routes connectivity, capacity and speed. Open up, electrify and upgrade the Crewe to Sandbach to Middlewich to Northwich freight rail line. Electrify and upgrade the Mid Cheshire Snail Rail Line: Chester to Northwich to Knutsford to Manchester.
Then HS2 will have yet another route choice to reach Manchester via Northwich.
And then the Government will have yet another opportunity to boast of funding a project that levels up, builds back better and serves the left behind communities, specifically for us in Mid Cheshire.
In fact let’s just have these local Cheshire Integrated Rail Plan improvements. Why do we need HS2? Come on British Government spend our money locally and wisely all over the UK from Caithness to Cheshire to Carmarthen and Cornwall and level us all us.
Rosalind Todhunter
Northwich
Mid Cheshire Snail Rail Line User
