Backtracking on HS2: the state of high-speed rail in the UK

The government has found a reverse gear on the controversial high-speed rail project. But does backing out now make sense?

MoneyWeek cover illustration - HS2
A U-turn on the U-turn may be on the cards
(Image credit: )

What’s happened?

After years of reassurances and manifesto pledges that High Speed 2 would be built in full – including the arm from Birmingham to Yorkshire as well as the one to Manchester – the current government has backtracked. Instead of heading to Leeds, there will be a much shorter spur north-east from Birmingham to East Midlands Parkway, a new station serving the region around Leicester, Derby and Nottingham. From there, high-speed trains will slow down onto existing lines.

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Simon Wilson’s first career was in book publishing, as an economics editor at Routledge, and as a publisher of non-fiction at Random House, specialising in popular business and management books. While there, he published Customers.com, a bestselling classic of the early days of e-commerce, and The Money or Your Life: Reuniting Work and Joy, an inspirational book that helped inspire its publisher towards a post-corporate, portfolio life.   

Since 2001, he has been a writer for MoneyWeek, a financial copywriter, and a long-time contributing editor at The Week. Simon also works as an actor and corporate trainer; current and past clients include investment banks, the Bank of England, the UK government, several Magic Circle law firms and all of the Big Four accountancy firms. He has a degree in languages (German and Spanish) and social and political sciences from the University of Cambridge.