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People whose homes sit on the proposed new high speed rail link between London and the north of England will get government help, Philip Hammond has announced.
Giving evidence to the Commons transport committee yesterday, the new transport secretary said that no local community could ever have a veto over major infrastructure projects.
“One of the functions of governments is to balance national benefits with local dis-benefits,” he said. “That is a very, very difficult thing to do."
And he said while it was very easy to look at the “clear business case” for big transport projects, it was much more difficult to explain to people were directly and adversely affected by them why they were necessary.
He added: "People who currently are faced with extreme hardship as a result of the identification of that route have the possibility of being able to sell their properties, notwithstanding the inevitable planning blight."
Many local authorities are also lobbying hard to ensure the proposed new high speed rail link from London to Birmingham and Manchester includes stops in their area.
But Hammond warned that every stop significantly eroded the business case for the service, especially considering the proposed running speed of High Speed 2 will be “considerably faster” than the French TGV system.
“The whole point of high speed rail is that it is not forever slowing down and stopping,” he said.
“When the train is travelling at its designated full speed of 250mph, introducing a stop will deliver about a six minute time penalty.
"Which is not insignificant when you're talking about a journey London Birmingham of forty minutes."
Crucial to the link is its connection to Heathrow, given the Coalition's decision to block the construction of a third runway at the London airport.
“There has to be a form of connection to Heathrow that makes sense to air travellers, that feels like a proper rail-to-air connection,” he said. "Frankfurt, Paris and to a lesser extent Schiphol, have excellent rail-to-air connections as part of the passenger experience."
He said that this could not be achieved by making passengers “lug heavy bags down escalators” and then change trains at a “wet suburban station in north west London".
Noting the London to Birmingham section of the track is expected to take ten years to complete, Hammond told the committee it was not possible to build the entire rail link at once due to financial constraints.
“If we had limitless money it might make sense to build it all at once,” he said. “The reality is it would not be finance-able, we have to work on a sequential basis. It's a medium to long term project to connect whole of UK by high speed rail."
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