Business and council leaders in Cheshire have warned that the potential cancellation of HS2's route from Birmingham to Manchester would cost the county £2bn a year.
Cheshire and Warrington's council leaders and the region's LEP have written to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak expressing their "deep concern" over the rumoured scrapping of HS2's northern leg.
The letter has been signed by Cllr Sam Corcoran, leader of Cheshire East Council, Cllr Craig Browne, deputy leader of Cheshire East Council, Cllr Louise Gittins, leader of Cheshire West and Chester Council, Cllr Russ Bowden, leader of Warrington Borough Council and Clare Hayward, chair of Cheshire and Warrington Local Enterprise Partnership.
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In the letter, the leaders said: "We are writing to express deep concern over the rumours of the cancellation of HS2 north of Birmingham and Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) given that the two lines share the part of the route to Manchester Airport and onwards to Manchester. We share the concerns and support the letters submitted by the Northern Powerhouse Partnership and Cheshire East Council and the effects that these rumours are having on business confidence and willingness to invest.
"HS2 and NPR are game changers for Cheshire and Warrington and the wider North West, with the potential to unlock significant housing, employment and productivity gains. The benefits from HS2/NPR would be spread across the entire sub-region and into neighbouring areas.
"In Cheshire and Warrington alone HS2 will add £2bn per annum to GVA, create 27,000 new jobs and deliver six million sq ft of new commercial floor space and 25,000 new homes. Cheshire East Council has been working with Ministers from both DLUCH and DfT on the future infrastructure requirements and regenerative impacts that HS2 will bring to Crewe via the HS2 Taskforce, the cross department Deep Dive and recent commitments to identify and undertake design work on the interventions needed at Crewe Station.
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"These activities build upon initiatives such as the Future High Streets Fund and the Crewe Town Deal programme. HS2 presents a once in a generation opportunity to level up the town, delivering nearly 5000 new jobs, 4,500 new homes and adding £750m to the town's GVA. Crewe would be particularly badly affected by cancellation or significant delay to HS2; it will have a substantially disproportional impact on the local population of Crewe, where half of the council wards are in the top 10% most deprived in the country.
"Just to the North of Crewe the planned HS2 depot at Winsford (the Crewe North Rolling Stock Depot) will be an operational and maintenance hub, featuring 27 sidings 400 metres in length, accommodating up to 54 high speed trains. When operational, the works undertaken at this depot will be more extensive than elsewhere on the Western Leg, ranging from light cleaning to heavy duty maintenance.
"This depot is where most train drivers will be based and will start and end their shifts, generating new jobs and innumerable supply chain opportunities mid-Cheshire. In Chester, as a direct consequence of the improved connectivity offered by the full western leg of HS2, Cheshire West and Chester Council has been working with Government owned London & Continental Railways (LCR) on a vision and development framework that will deliver significant regeneration and development around Chester Station, whilst Warrington Borough Council is identifying the opportunities and benefits arising from NPR and the Integrated Rail Plan.
"The area around Bank Quay station is the second largest project on HS2/NPR line outside of London at 112 Hectares and will deliver one third of the housing the borough needs in the next 30 years on a Brownfield town centre site. The site will deliver in excess of £2bn GVA of direct economic benefits and enable high-speed rail links between Liverpool and Manchester utilising existing latent infrastructure.
"Once land and property benefits are accounted for, we anticipate the Liverpool to Manchester link and potential connections of the airports to be one of the highest performing Benefit Cost Ratios of HS2 / IPR network, in part due to existing latent infrastructure between Liverpool and Warrington. HS2 also offers significant benefits to key towns in mid-Cheshire including Knutsford and Northwich with the re-opening of the Mid-Cheshire Railway Line (for which there is a strong business case) offering direct links to high-speed services to Birmingham and London via Crewe for residents of these and other towns such as Middlewich.
"The strength of this business case relies on the delivery of the full western leg of HS2 to Crewe and Manchester. Cancellation of HS2 would have a significant impact on private sector confidence in Cheshire and Warrington and throw away the opportunities the line offers to grow the economy and level up under-performing parts of the North.
"As the Northern Powerhouse Partnership has observed, history has shown time and again that committing to investment in major infrastructure pays dividends. Whilst large-scale projects will always be challenging to deliver, they bring significant long-term economic benefits. It is essential, therefore, that HS2 and NPR are delivered in full as quickly as possible.
"Given the importance of HS2 and NPR to the sub-region, Louise Gittins, chair of the Cheshire and Warrington Leaders’ Board, and Sam Corcoran and Craig Browne, the leader and deputy leader of Cheshire East Council which covers Crewe, are requesting a meeting, ahead of any further decisions being made on the scheme, with you to discuss how we can ensure they are successfully delivered."