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JOINING UP BRITAIN

About 2M
The 2M Group is an all-party alliance of local
authorities concerned at the environmental impact of
Heathrow expansion on their communities. The group,
which took its name from the 2 million residents of the
original 12 authorities, now represents 21 councils with
a combined population of around 4.5 million people.

The full membership comprises the London Boroughs

of Brent, Camden, Ealing, Greenwich, Hammersmith
and Fulham, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Islington,
Kensington and Chelsea, Kingston, Lambeth,
Lewisham, Merton, Richmond, Sutton, Southwark and
Wandsworth, the boroughs of Slough, Windsor and
Maidenhead and South Bucks District Council.

For more information visit

www.2MGroup.org.uk

Designed and produced by the Corporate Communications Unit,

Wandsworth Council. TC.1750 (7.08)
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East Coast
Corridor
High Speed North

West Coast Corridor Stevenage Cambridge

Cricklewood
Interchange Integrated
high speed
terminal

Kings
Euston
Cross
Wales & London St Pancras Stratford
The West Heathrow Paddington City

Reading

Waterloo

High Speed One

Europe

Woking

Wessex

Portsmouth High Speed North

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Joining up Britain
“The 2M Group has been a passionate, and we hope, constructive, About the author
contributor to the debate on Heathrow expansion. Our concern
throughout has not been simply to knock Heathrow but to speak This pamphlet has been researched, compiled and
up on behalf of our residents and protect their quality of life. written by Colin Elliff BSc CEng MICE. Colin Elliff is
a chartered civil engineer with over 25 years’
As part of this process we have inevitably come to consider where experience, working in the rail industry.
aviation fits in the broader context of national transport policy.
It is published by the 2M Group of local authorities
This pamphlet will, we hope, raise questions as to why as a contribution to the national debate on
alternatives to airport expansion are not being more vigorously transportation policy in the context of Heathrow
pursued. expansion.

The study and its conclusions are all the work of Colin Elliff who Colin Elliff's detailed proposals were contained in
came to us with his ideas. It is not necessary to agree with all of his submission to the Department for Transport’s
Colin's prescriptions to recognise the inherent logic of his ‘Adding Capacity at Heathrow’ consultation and are
message. available together with supporting diagrams at
www.2MGroup.org.uk
The airlines and airport operators have long been powerful
advocates for their industry. Yet the need for equally influential
rail 'champions' has never been greater.

Whatever the future holds for Heathrow can we really continue to

ignore the potential of high speed rail to transform the way we
travel both in the UK and in Europe?"

Foreword by Edward Lister,

Leader of Wandsworth Council on behalf of the 2M Group

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Glasgow Edinburgh Tomorrow’s

Copenhagen
high speed map
Liverpool
of Europe
Birmingham Amsterdam Hamburg

London
Berlin Warsaw
Cologne
Brussels Frankfurt
Paris
Vienna

Zurich
Munich

Lyon Milan
Bordeaux
Venice

Madrid
Nice Rome

Barcelona
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JOINING UP BRITAIN

A one sided debate

The debate over the UK Government’s plans Meanwhile the north of England and Scotland miss out
for expanding Heathrow has been conducted on the regenerative effects of new transport
in a vacuum. infrastructure development.

While the Department for Transport rushes to meet the Train or plane?
aviation industry's demands for extra capacity, little
priority is given to investment in other sectors. The more UK cities that can be brought within a three-
hour rail journey of London, the more likely it is that
This pamphlet looks at how a new high speed rail people will choose the train over the plane.
network, allied with radical improvements to
Heathrow’s own rail links, might offer a competitive Experience in Europe confirms that flying loses its
alternative to domestic and European short-haul flights appeal when the same journey can be made by rail
and contribute to a significant easing of congestion on within this three-hour threshold.
our increasingly crowded roads.
With check-in delays at airports only likely to get worse
and growing concerns about the environmental impact
The North - South divide
of air travel, it is likely that the 'tipping point' for many
Adding new runway capacity in the South East travellers could extend to four hours. This brings
seems to be the main focus of Government major cities such as Edinburgh and Glasgow,
transportation policies. Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Lyon within high speed rail
range of London.
But this only encourages more people to fly
to Heathrow from other parts of the country. With an integrated UK and European high-speed rail
network this would open up many more attractive
It also concentrates investment in an area where the alternatives such as Manchester to Milan and Sheffield
economy is already overheated and adds to local road to Frankfurt.
and rail congestion.

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JOINING UP BRITAIN

High Speed North -

a new route to the North
The main building block for any new UK high speed rail Spurs would reach out to major cites in the Midlands
network must be a north-south route. and the North including Birmingham, Manchester
and Liverpool.
Most high speed proposals have centred on London -
offering few connections between other cities. It would be a companion to High Speed One – the
former Channel Tunnel rail link – which runs for just
These constraints could be overcome by building High 108 kilometres between St Pancras International and
Speed North - a single Anglo-Scottish spine route, with Folkestone and remains the only stretch of high-speed
spur connections to outlying cities. track in the UK.

The spine would initially follow the MI from London

and serve Leicester, Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds,
Newcastle, Edinburgh en route to Glasgow.

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High Speed North - step-by-step

The M1 offers a direct corridor for the new line.
The topography allows a straight and level alignment
while the existing noise and pollution from the
motorway has discouraged residential development
alongside the route. This makes the M1 suitable for the
parallel construction of a high speed line.

The full north-south line would be built in phases.

The first section would run from London to Leicester Edinburgh

with a branch to Birmingham; it would connect to both Glasgow

West Coast and Midland Main Lines.
Newcastle
The second phase would extend from Leicester along
the M1/M18 corridor and connect to the East Coast
Main Line in Yorkshire.
Leeds
Liverpool
The third phase could extend from Sheffield to Leeds,
Sheffield
and follow the disused Woodhead corridor to Manchester

Manchester. This would require the former rail tunnel Leicester

here to be re-opened for high speed track.
Birmingham
Cricklewood
Interchange
The final stages would extend to Liverpool along the
M62 corridor and shadow the East Coast Main Line and London London
M8 corridors to Edinburgh and Glasgow. Heathrow

The end result - a UK high speed network bringing vast

benefits in improved connectivity and capacity.

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Heathrow, the heart of the network

The new rail infrastructure would not turn its back on This is far from the model of a modern transport hub
Heathrow. On the contrary, with relatively modest that would improve local and regional services for
development, the existing Heathrow Express system people in west London and national services for air
could be transformed into a regional network focused travellers flying from Heathrow.
on the airport. Trains would radiate in all directions
and would provide frequent connections to the new
high speed line.

Heathrow would become a truly integrated transport

hub. People in all parts of the country needing to
fly from the airport would be able to reach it by
main line train.

Currently Heathrow's only rail connection to the

national network is the Heathrow Express to
Paddington. Otherwise it's a bus to Woking or Reading
or a Piccadilly Line tube to central London.

The current airport expansion plans offer only a hotch-

potch of disparate terminating branch lines operating
on different power systems - for example the proposed
Airtrack link to Staines will use ‘third rail’ power and
trains will not continue onto the overhead-electrified
Heathrow Express.

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The ‘compass point’ network

The proposed 'compass point' network would make the The Heathrow compass points
airport instantly more accessible on all sides. Indeed if,
as the Department for Transport claims, seven out of North The northern arm would comprise an orbital
ten foreign companies want to locate within one hour of route through Wembley, Cricklewood and Stevenage
Heathrow, the economic benefits accruing from this linking to all radial main lines to the North.
investment would reach many more centres of
The key north London hub would be a new Cricklewood
population as far afield as the Thames-side
Interchange. This would provide an international
communities, the South Coast and Milton Keynes.
connection to Europe via High Speed One avoiding the
Up to 40 trains an hour could disperse Heathrow’s need for a stop at St Pancras International. It would
incoming travellers in all directions to a wide range of also link to services on the new High Speed North,
Home Counties destinations and outer-suburban hubs Midland Main Line and Thameslink.
for connection to main line services.
South The southern arm would comprise the
It would also allow new cross-London routes such as currently proposed Airtrack link to Staines and Woking.
Reading to Cambridge or Luton to Portsmouth. This would radically improve links to outer suburban
areas.

East The current Heathrow Express line to the east

would extend with Crossrail to the City and beyond,
and link more effectively to the suburban rail network.

West The western arm would connect to Slough and

Reading and provide onward connections to Wales and
the West Country.

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East Coast
Corridor
High Speed North
Stevenage Cambridge
West Coast Corridor

Cricklewood
Integrated
Interchange high speed
terminal

Kings
Euston Cross Stratford
London St Pancras
Wales &
The West
Heathrow Paddington City

Reading

Waterloo

High Speed One

Europe

Developed Woking

Heathrow Wessex

Express
Network Portsmouth
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Birmingham to Barcelona?
The opening of St Pancras International at last provides The current Railteam initiative aims to make European
a fitting gateway to Europe for UK rail travellers. The rail travel simpler and more competitive by integrating
high speed connections advanced in this study would the different countries' high speed systems.
bring St Pancras and Europe within easy reach of many
parts of the UK. With an extended cross-European high speed network
it would be possible to buy a single ticket for a journey
The continued expansion of high speed lines in from Birmingham to Barcelona.
countries such as France, Germany and Spain will
create the opportunity for many new European rail
services. This would bring cities such as Cologne,
Frankfurt and Lyon within easy reach of the UK by rail.

Possible new routes to Europe:

Glasgow/Edinburgh - Paris • Liverpool/Manchester - Milan • Leeds/Sheffield - Amsterdam
Leeds/Sheffield - Frankfurt • Liverpool/Manchester - Amsterdam • Glasgow/Edinburgh - Frankfurt
Glasgow/Edinburgh - Geneva • Birmingham- Amsterdam • Birmingham - Barcelona • Liverpool/Manchester - Berlin
Leeds/Sheffield - Paris • Birmingham - Nice (& Côte d’Azur)

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A sustainable solution The costs

For basic energy use high speed rail is several times The UK Government favours airport expansion over rail
more efficient than aviation. investment not least because the development and
construction costs fall to the private sector.
In terms of carbon footprint, the comparison is even
more compelling since electricity can be generated But the current consultation on Heathrow has
from renewable sources. Eurostar puts its carbon highlighted concerns that the true economic and
emissions at just 10 per cent of those from environmental costs of expansion have not been
an aircraft. assessed.

With aviation reliant on increasingly expensive and The rail infrastructure investment outlined in this study
scarce oil supplies, rail's basic energy demand makes has been estimated at around £30bn for the full
this form of transportation sustainable well into the programme which would last until 2030.
22nd century.
Whether we are building a new runway at Heathrow or
The new lines proposed in this study in most cases not, the question is whether as a nation we can afford
follow existing transportation corridors such as not to invest in an expanded rail network that will
motorways or railways, with very little effect on relieve the growing congestion on existing roads and
residential property. This contrasts with the wholesale public transport that makes it harder for people to
destruction of communities envisaged by the third move around, and for business to distribute materials
runway proposal at Heathrow. and products.

In weighing those costs we should at the same time

count the regenerative impact of rail investment in the
regions and the benefits to the economy in the South
East from a better connected, more accessible
Heathrow.

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