Minister calls for Cheerleaders as he prepares to confirm Phase 2b route

The route of HS2 Phase 2b through the East Midlands, Yorkshire and Cheshire is due to be confirmed this Monday, with sources suggesting little has changed . Ahead of this, admitting that still after seven and a half years, a sceptical public still don’t support HS2, HS2 Minister Paul Maynard asked a room full of representatives of the construction industry firms set to make billions from this white elephant, to become more active cheerleaders for the project, saying:

“I am one of the cheerleaders for that but everyone in this room has to be as well.”

Though Laing O’Rourke’s high-speed director Nadia Savage seemed to be coming from the point of view that HS2 was akin to a cure for cancer, adding;

“Engineers are good at talking about moving so many million cubes of muck, or moving lifts so many 100ft high in the air, but we are not so good about talking about the benefits to mankind.”

One of the reasons for asking for industry to get behind the project is the fact that recently, on top of the already woeful public support for the project, more people have been pointing to HS2 as something which could be cut for pay for the sorts of things the country so obviously actually needs.  But as yet, because HS2 has been out of the public eye for a while, these calls have not made it through into the mainstream news agenda.

However, this may well change on Monday, as it seems the route of Phase 2b through Cheshire on one side of the country and the East Midlands and Yorkshire on the other is set to be announced, following the consultation that concluded at the start of the year.  It is expected that the route will stay more or less as it was amended to around a year ago.

Watch this space!

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