Supporters of High Speed 2 need to build a broader argument for the project and stop focusing on cost/benefit analyses, the broadcaster and economist Evan Davis (pictured) said last week.

“We need less financial precision and more convincing stories when making a case for the project,” he told a City University lecture on Wednesday. “Too much weight is placed on precise figures and Government is now hoist on its own petard as the figures don’t stack up. We need to look at what has happened in other countries with high speed rail and build a broader argument for its development.”

Mr Davis asked the audience to imagine that a high speed rail line delivers £100 of benefit to one million people and one million pounds of disbenefit to 100 people. “There is no doubt that the people losing a million pounds would get a disproportionate amount of airtime,” he said.

But he added that few of the opponents to construction of the M25 in the 1980s would wish the road never existed today. The same could be said of last year’s Olympic Games. “How many who thought the Games were too expensive would wish it never happened,” he asked. “People have a bias in favour of the status quo.”

One of the reasons local communities are so vocal against major infrastructure schemes is, he went on, because they are so poorly compensated when a project is built nearby. And the infrastructure sector should copy what has been achieved at the Hindhead Tunnel on the A3 in Surrey, he added.

“That scheme relieves what was an appalling bottleneck for the benefit of motorists, and the countryside through which the old road passes has been beautifully restored,” he said. “There must be loads of places where advances can be achieved both in terms of development and the environment.”

(Photo: BBC)

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