The Tories are selling off the land purchased for HS2 cheap to their mates, which will make it much more difficult for any future government to reverse their terrible decisions and locking us in to another generation of under investment in transportation.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Land earmarked for the HS2 routes now scrapped will not be protected for potential future expansion of the high-speed railway, the Department for Transport (DfT) has confirmed.
Under a process known as safeguarding, land on those routes was protected to stop conflicting developments taking place.
The DfT said safeguarding will be lifted in Cheshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Yorkshire “at the earliest opportunity” to “remove the uncertainty that has surrounded thousands of people along the route”.
It went on: “The land acquisition programme on Phase 2a (between the West Midlands and Crewe) will be halted immediately and HS2 will not be accepting new applications under the existing schemes from property owners in the areas where safeguarding is going to be lifted.
Rail engineer and writer Gareth Dennis wrote on social media platform X, previously known as Twitter, that the Government’s actions were “deliberate vandalism”.
For Phase 2b – between the West Midlands and Manchester – safeguarding will be amended by summer 2024 to allow for plans under Northern Powerhouse Rail.
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