Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the (a) number of additional jobs and (b) amount of additional housing resulting from a Victoria High Speed 2 station location.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Analysis of the Sheffield City Region station options was published in the ‘Engineering options report; West Midlands to Leeds’ dated March 2012. This included analysis of several station sites around the city centre.
The current estimated difference in cost between locating a High Speed station at Victoria and Meadowhall is £680m. Previous work on the cost of options at Victoria and other city centre sites are not comparable to the current estimate given above. With regards to the Meadowhall station, following the 2013 public consultation, no significant changes have been made to the original station design therefore there have not been any changes in cost.
When recommending a station location HS2 Ltd. uses a number of criteria, including;
Potential options were sifted by HS2 Ltd. according to these criteria. To support and challenge this approach, external stakeholders and advisors from the Department’s Project Representative Team were involved in reviewing the process and outcomes where appropriate. Further information about the appraisal process can be found in the 2012 ‘Options for phase two of the high speed rail network’ report and 2013 ‘Appraisal of Sustainability’ report. Both of these documents are available on the government website.
Analysis undertaken by HS2 shows that the introduction of the Sheffield Meadowhall HS2 station could support up to 5,400 jobs and up to 300 residential units, while a HS2 station at Victoria could support an estimated 9,000 jobs and 900 housing units.
Finally, I can confirm that Department for Transport officials have received a copy of Sheffield City Region's study into connectivity for a city centre High Speed 2 station at Victoria which Network Rail was involved in.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what methodology his Department used to determine that the proposed Sheffield station should be at Meadowhall and not Victoria; and whether that methodology has been independently verified.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Analysis of the Sheffield City Region station options was published in the ‘Engineering options report; West Midlands to Leeds’ dated March 2012. This included analysis of several station sites around the city centre.
The current estimated difference in cost between locating a High Speed station at Victoria and Meadowhall is £680m. Previous work on the cost of options at Victoria and other city centre sites are not comparable to the current estimate given above. With regards to the Meadowhall station, following the 2013 public consultation, no significant changes have been made to the original station design therefore there have not been any changes in cost.
When recommending a station location HS2 Ltd. uses a number of criteria, including;
Potential options were sifted by HS2 Ltd. according to these criteria. To support and challenge this approach, external stakeholders and advisors from the Department’s Project Representative Team were involved in reviewing the process and outcomes where appropriate. Further information about the appraisal process can be found in the 2012 ‘Options for phase two of the high speed rail network’ report and 2013 ‘Appraisal of Sustainability’ report. Both of these documents are available on the government website.
Analysis undertaken by HS2 shows that the introduction of the Sheffield Meadowhall HS2 station could support up to 5,400 jobs and up to 300 residential units, while a HS2 station at Victoria could support an estimated 9,000 jobs and 900 housing units.
Finally, I can confirm that Department for Transport officials have received a copy of Sheffield City Region's study into connectivity for a city centre High Speed 2 station at Victoria which Network Rail was involved in.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether proposals for Northern Powerhouse Rail are based on city centre to city centre connectivity and on ensuring half-hour journeys between Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester.
Answered by Andrew Jones
Northern Powerhouse Rail is the government and Transport for the North’s shared vision to dramatically improve frequencies and journey times between the city centres of Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, Hull, Newcastle, and Manchester Airport.
The aspiration for journey times between Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester is 30 minutes.
Since the publication of the March 2015 Northern Transport Strategy, the government and Transport for the North have undertaken significant work to understand what the capability of the rail infrastructure would need to be, by route, to deliver such transformational connectivity.
An updated Strategy will be published in the spring.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will publish the independent costings of linking High Speed 2 to the Northern Powerhouse Rail work for both Manchester and Sheffield city centre station locations.
Answered by Andrew Jones
Since the publication of the March 2015 Northern Transport Strategy, the government and Transport for the North have undertaken significant work to understand what the capability of the rail infrastructure – between and within cities - would need to be to deliver the Northern Powerhouse Rail vision.
Network Rail and HS2 Ltd. are currently working to establish the scale of investment required. We expect to have an understanding of the relative scale of costs by autumn 2016.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will publish the East Midlands Trains Franchise Extension document to March 2018.
Answered by Claire Perry
The Department negotiated a Direct Award with Stagecoach to provide services until March 2018. The new Franchise document is currently being prepared for publication and will be available soon on our website at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/public-register-of-rail-passenger-franchise-agreements.