Rail group calls for better transport planning

PlanningResource, 13 November 2007

High speed rail campaign group Greenguage21 today made the claim in a document which proposed five new high speed rail links.

It said that the government has recognized that the omission of rail projects from the infrastructure statements was an oversight.

It said: "Clearly, if the new system is to work at all, it has to cover high speed rail projects."

The report also said that proposals for a new cross-mode strategic approach outlined in the Transport Bill needs to be speeded up.

It said: "However elegant the new cross-mode strategic approach is on paper, until there is an approved National Statement on Transport (which seems to depend on getting a long way through a DfT process that won't deliver until 2012), there can be no new approach to progressing the planning powers for individual schemes.

"Without compromising the necessary consultation with interested parties, this needs to be accelerated."

The report outlined five potential routes for high speed rail links.

Three would link London with Manchester via Birmingham, the North East via Cambridge, and Cardiff via Bristol.

Another would link Leeds and Manchester, while the final one would link Scotland to the South East.