Rishi Sunak’s decision to scrap the northern leg of HS2 will lead to 500,000 extra lorry trips on the roads, transport firms have said.
The prime minister defied senior Tories and business leaders to shelve HS2 from Birmingham to Manchester saying “the facts have changed” and the cost of the high-speed rail scheme had “more than doubled”.
But the traffic and environmental implications of his decision could be huge.
Figures crunched by transport firms and published in The Independent predict there will be 500,000 extra lorry trips on the roads as a result of cancelling the rail line to Manchester –roughly equivalent to an extra journey a year for every single registered HGV in Britain.
HS2 was designed to relieve existing rail lines, leaving more space for local services and freight to run on the lines.
Andy Bagnall, chief executive of Rail Partners, which represents the parent companies of railway operator, including freight firms, said: “A decision of this magnitude will have consequences felt for generations by the rail industry, its supply chain, passengers and freight customers.
“The cancellation of the northern section of HS2 means less capacity for rail freight and ultimately more lorries clogging our roads, with businesses seeking to decarbonise their supply chains limited in their options to move goods off the roads and onto rails.”
Sunak has unveiled a “plan for drivers” as he looks to reallocate billions from the HS2 budget to road upgrades.
During his conference speech last week, he also said cash from HS2 could be used to upgrade roads including the A1, A2, A5, and M6 – although he has since said such proposals were “indicative” and may not happen.
Firms say a single freight train removes the equivalent of around 129 lorries from Britain’s roads. There are around 500,000 licensed HGVs in Great Britain, which made 153 million HGV journeys in the 12 month to June 2022.
Related: Jeremy Hunt’s HS2 comments from 2020 come back to haunt him