This summer the Government announced that it would be holding a review in to the High Speed 2 project.

The HS2 M18 route is an appalling story of bad decision-making, half-baked compromises and broken promises which satisfy nobody.

I along with my colleagues John Healey MP and Sir Kevin Barron MP have today made a joint submission to this review urging them to put the route out of its misery in favour of a better, integrated plan which can help our communities.

We told the Review Team that: “HS2 was intended to be a national infrastructure project that would not just connect London to the North or city to city but one that all communities would benefit from, particularly our towns. Instead we have a project with costs spiralling out of control, no proper integrated approach in route planning and delivery and heavy impacts on local communities who have all of the pain and none of the gain.”

It is time for the Government to think again.