High Speed 2’s chairman David Higgins has defended a decision to design railway track on the scheme that can accommodate train speeds as high as 400km/h.

Sir David was grilled by the House of Lords’ Economic Affairs Committee on Tuesday. He was asked by former Chancellor Lord Lawson whether it was financially prudent for Britain’s proposed high speed route to allow trains to run faster than they do in France.

“High Speed 2 is planned to run at speeds hugely in excess of the French TGV,” Lord Lawson said. “Substantial savings could be made by configuring track to accommodate trains that run at the same speed as the TGV, which is not to be sneezed at. What is the point of boasting the fastest trains in Europe?”

Sir David said that not all of the route will be designed to accommodate travel at 400km/h with tunnels, for instance, being designed for trains running at up to 360km/h. But he is keen for as much of the infrastructure to be built to as high a standard as possible so as not to preclude use by even faster trains in future.

Otherwise, he suggested, “if one day you want to get to Glasgow in three hours someone will ask ‘why did you build tunnels so small or didn’t spend an extra bit of money’.”

Sir David added that he would like to see a National Transport Strategy published so that major infrastructure projects such as HS2 could be rated against one another. He was then asked if it would be preferable to have such a strategy in place before committing to spending £50Bn on the railway.

“I can’t fault your logic,” Sir David replied. “I am passionate about the country having a national strategy for transport. Having said that I don’t think there will be any debate that convinces me that there is any other alternative to providing new relief to the West Coast mainline.”

(Photo: HS2)

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