Warrington campaigners welcome HS2 Golborne Link scrapping

It comes after the Department for Transport announced its intention to remove the Golborne Link from the current HS2 Bill.

The scheme has long received widespread anger from residents and councillors in east Warrington, particularly in Culcheth, Glazebury and Croft, where it was said the project would ‘decimate villages and green belt’.

A review claimed that the Golborne Link does not resolve all the current capacity constraints on the West Coast Main Line – a view which has been described by campaigners as ‘common sense’.

“The cancellation of the Golborne Link of HS2 is vindication of everything we have been saying for more than a decade,” a spokesman for Stop HS2 North said.

“You can deliver more benefits to more people more quickly for less money without the massive environmental impact by upgrading existing infrastructure, reopening old lines and providing sustainable local transport.

“People want to get into and around the towns and cities where they live and work.

“They do not need a fast train for fat cats that only ever got this far to prop up the powerful lobbyists from the construction industry.”

The campaign group says that at a local level, the scrapping of the Golborne Link ‘avoids harm and negative impacts to ancient woodland and the general ecology’.

According to the CPRE, The Countryside Charity, sphagnum moss and other rare flora and fauna would have risked extinction through the creation of the link.

Many communities along the 13-mile route also faced ‘substantial permanent impacts’ from the railway, with the villages of Hollins Green and Warburton being effectively cut in two.

An impression of how HS2 would look (Image: PA)

“The opportunist spin is that cancelling the Golborne Link is a betrayal of the north, but it is absolutely not,” the spokesman added.

“If you want to level-up, the very last thing you would do would be to make it quicker and easier to get down to London, which is where the economic benefits would have gone.

“If you want to help the north of England, or indeed any region, you spend that money in those areas on developing the transport systems that ordinary people will use every day.

“In many cases, local and regional infrastructure and links have been in desperate need of improvement and investment for decades.”

The Golborne Link scrapping has also been welcomed by the HS2 Rebellion campaign group, which says the original HS2 plan has changed ‘immeasurably’ from what was on the table ten years ago.

“After scrapping the Golborne Link, the cancellation of the Birmingham-Leeds leg and the Heathrow Spur, along with the shelving of the HS1 link, one has to wonder what HS2 is for, and whether it represents what was originally voted for,” a spokesman commented.

“It is quite staggering to see so many fundamental changes being made to a £100billion-plus mega project at such a late stage, and with so little explanation or alternative.

“Once again, HS2 seem to be making it up as they go along – at tremendous cost to the taxpayer, local communities and our environment.

“Now that working from home is established and will continue to reduce the numbers of long-distance and city commuters, you have to ask why this Government is hell bent on going ahead with such an environmentally damaging white elephant.

“The answer of course is that a select group of people are going to make a lot of money out of it, and that has always been the only real reason for building HS2.”

Warrington North MP Charlotte Nichols is among those that have welcomed the Golborne Link being scrapped.

Warrington North MP Charlotte Nichols

The Labour politician said: “After years of using every opportunity to lobby against this disastrous proposal, including questions in the Chamber to the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Transport, written questions, meetings, briefings, letters, statements and delivering a petition signed by thousands of local residents, this is a hard-fought victory for common sense and long overdue.

“I want to pay tribute to all those residents and campaigners who have continuously helped to keep the pressure on the Government to do the right thing, and who showed we would not be ignored.

"Going into recess, the Golborne Spur was still part of the Bill, and all the assurances I had received over the last two years felt hollow.

“I kept my promise made when I was elected to campaign against the spur, and I am glad on this occasion that the Government have finally kept theirs.”

News of the link being removed from the Bill has also been welcomed in Culcheth, Glazebury and Croft, which would have been hugely impacted, by Conservative borough councillor Wendy Maisey.

She added: “Campaigning against the Golborne Link was one of the environmental and community issues that brought me into politics.

“I am absolutely delighted the Government has listened and now it has been confirmed the link has been scrapped and removed from the HS2 plan.

“It would have had such a detrimental impact for all residents of Culcheth, Glazebury and Croft, literally splitting our villages in half.

“When I met with the HS2 minister Andrew Stephenson MP in April, I again put the case forward for removing the Golborne Link.

“I cannot tell you how delighted I am with this result.”