Rishi Sunak’s cuts to HS2 will leave more motorists sitting in traffic jams as companies abandon plans to shift freight from lorries on to rail, transport bosses have warned.
After that part of the project was scrapped, the prime minister was accused of a “senseless and counterproductive” U-turn –and warned his policy would lead to “major backlogs on our already congested roads”.
The warning shot comes after Mr Sunak unveiled a “plan for drivers” and reallocated billions from the HS2 budget to road upgrades in a bid to cast himself as the friend of the motorist.
Without this vital additional capacity, plans to improve the UK’s freight and passenger services will be restricted," said Alex Veitch, director of policy and insights at the British Chambers of Commerce.
"Each train that HS2’s capacity would have unlocked had the potential to remove up to 129 lorries from the road, this will also be a lost opportunity to build a low-carbon freight transport system.
Wera Hobhouse, the Liberal Democrats’ transport spokesperson, said: “This is yet another broken promise from Rishi Sunak, which will end up causing major backlogs on our already congested roads and railway lines.”
The original article contains 726 words, the summary contains 193 words. Saved 73%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Rishi Sunak’s cuts to HS2 will leave more motorists sitting in traffic jams as companies abandon plans to shift freight from lorries on to rail, transport bosses have warned.
After that part of the project was scrapped, the prime minister was accused of a “senseless and counterproductive” U-turn –and warned his policy would lead to “major backlogs on our already congested roads”.
The warning shot comes after Mr Sunak unveiled a “plan for drivers” and reallocated billions from the HS2 budget to road upgrades in a bid to cast himself as the friend of the motorist.
Without this vital additional capacity, plans to improve the UK’s freight and passenger services will be restricted," said Alex Veitch, director of policy and insights at the British Chambers of Commerce.
"Each train that HS2’s capacity would have unlocked had the potential to remove up to 129 lorries from the road, this will also be a lost opportunity to build a low-carbon freight transport system.
Wera Hobhouse, the Liberal Democrats’ transport spokesperson, said: “This is yet another broken promise from Rishi Sunak, which will end up causing major backlogs on our already congested roads and railway lines.”
The original article contains 726 words, the summary contains 193 words. Saved 73%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!