HS2 supporters and opponents believe the eastern leg could still terminate near East Midlands Airport despite spiralling costs and a Whitehall leak suggesting the whole eastern section will be axed.
Work is underway on the first part of the high speed railway – from London to Birmingham – but there are fresh concerns over the section joining Birmingham to Toton in Notts, and on to Sheffield, then Leeds.
One Whitehall insider told the Daily Mirror: “They have run out of cash. There’s no way we’re going to see this built in our lifetimes.”
The Government is reviewing the eastern leg, while a National Infrastructure Commission report at the end of last year suggested finishing the line at East Midlands Parkway – a few miles from the airport on the Leicestershire/Nottinghamshire border.
One supporter of HS2, who works in the industry, told BusinessLIve cancelling the eastern route would be “catastrophic” as it could form the “backbone” of more localised infrastructure improvements.
But North West Leicestershire MP and long-time HS2 opponent Andrew Bridgen said there was no value in an eastern leg, with latest estimates suggesting the whole HS2 programme could end up costing more than £150 billion. The original budget was £32.7 billion.
He said the eastern leg would cut through his constituency, but would provide no local station and no local benefit.
He said an announcement could be made in September “at the earliest” but believed the leaked Whitehall report was “credible” – cutting the eastern leg, he said, could save £40 billion.
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The Tory MP said: “The eastern leg has been under threat for a long time and I’ve always said there will be no money left for it.
“If it is cancelled, and I hope it is, we need it fully cancelled, not just mothballed, because that would just leave us with the blight hanging over us.
“It has already held up hundreds of jobs in my constituency, and we need that blight lifting so that the land can be released for development, otherwise it’s the worst of both worlds.
“Toton was always a site agreed by committee between Nottingham and Derby – but East Midlands Parkway would made some sense because its equidistant between Nottingham, Derby and Leicester and is close to the M1, airport and on the Midlands Mainline.
“I think the leaks from Whitehall are credible – there has been a delay in the final decision because they don’t know what to cut, and the fact it is taking longer for a decision to be made suggests to me a lot more will be cut.”
Mr Bridgen said rather than supporting the Government’s “Levelling Up” agenda, upgrading links to the capital via HS2 would drain money and talent from the regions.
He said: “About 90 per cent of my constituents don’t want it. It’s going to benefit a very few people who travel to London.
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“And if it was there to level up the country they would have started it in the north. Instead the faster you can get to London, the more money it will end up sucking out of the Midlands.
“It had a very shaky business case to start with and post-Covid it has none.”
One industry insider, in an organisation that has been backing the eastern leg, said it was critical some of the route to go through.
Even building it as far as East Midlands Parkway, they said, would provide the impetus for investment in local links making it easier to travel between cities such as Leicester, Nottingham and Coventry.
They said: “The way it’s been reported suggests the whole eastern section is going to get scrapped, but I think there’s pretty much zero per cent of that happening.
“If the East Midlands doesn’t get HS2 it will be catastrophically terrible.”
East Midlands Chamber chief executive Scott Knowles said he was getting used to anonymous Whitehall civil servants sending out signals to diminish the chances of the eastern section happening.
He said: “With the IRP [the Government’s Integrated Rail Plan] being kicked down the road continuously and not expected until the autumn, it has left a void for constant speculation that is causing huge uncertainty at a time when we need to know the direction ahead for future regional economic planning.
“It’s time for the Government to stop playing games with the future of our region, and those other areas that would stand to benefit significantly from HS2 East.
“While many of our perceptions have been adjusted during the pandemic, the huge economic benefits that HS2 can bring as part of the much-hyped levelling up agenda haven’t changed.
“Much of the understanding around HS2 appears to be hopelessly flawed.
“It is much more than just a new railway, bringing growth in the form of business investment, house building, place regeneration, high-skilled job creation, innovation, green technologies and more to areas that have faced chronic underinvestment over a number of years.
“Indeed, we are already seeing these plans start to come to fruition across Birmingham, where the certainty of the first phase of HS2 has already spurred private sector investment and development.
“Without the development of HS2 as promised, these plans will be critically undermined, and any delivery that does happen will certainly not be of the magnitude aspired to.”
The Department for Transport said “no decisions” had been finalised on the delivery of the route.
A spokesman said: “The Integrated Rail Plan will soon outline exactly how major rail projects, including HS2 phase 2b and other transformational projects such as Northern Powerhouse Rail, will work together to deliver the reliable train services that passengers across the North and Midlands need and deserve.”