York taxpayers may face HS2 bill

9:31am Tuesday 12th February 2013 in News Photograph of the Author By Mike Laycock, Chief reporter

City of York Council taxpayers may have to contribute towards the high-speed railway service bill City of York Council taxpayers may have to contribute towards the high-speed railway service bill

YORK council taxpayers may have to contribute towards the cost of Britain’s new high-speed railway line, it has emerged.

The Department for Transport has confirmed that, while funding for the £32.7 billion HS2 will come in large part from central government, local authorities might decide to offer support to secure benefits for local residents.

“Any third party contributions will depend on local circumstances and could take a variety of forms,” said a spokesman.

“It is right to offer local authorities an opportunity to do this. The timing of any local authority contributions to HS2 will depend on the local circumstances.”

He said council-tax levels were a matter for individual local authorities. “In setting out our aspirations for contributions from third parties to the HS2 programme, the Government has not anticipated any changes in council-tax levels.”

City of York Council deputy leader Coun Tracey Simpson-Laing said: “Clearly we want York to enjoy the economic benefits of HS2, and to that extent we will sit down and look at what is required in terms of local authority contributions.

“Last week’s paper was very open-ended in this respect so we await more detail. What we are clear about is our focus on the local economy and job creation so this will always been borne in mind when considering any spending commitments.”

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Tory group leader Ian Gillies said he did not expect York to have to make a contribution, as the new line would not even get to the city.

While the HS2 will not reach York, a spur from the new line will extend to Church Fenton, near Tadcaster, where it will link up with the East Coast Main Line just south of York.

York passengers are expected to benefit from cuts in journey times through HS2, with the York to London journey reduced from just under two hours currently to as little as one hour, 23 minutes, while the York to Birmingham journey would be reduced from 130 minutes to 63 minutes.

The project is also expected to create thousands of jobs in the region.

Comments(17)

pedalling paul says...
9:46am Tue 12 Feb 13

Would we get a bill from Whitehall that we have to pay, or do we get a choice?

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BL2 says...
10:09am Tue 12 Feb 13

They can let me have mine back please since I won't but using it ever!

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Ignatius Lumpopo says...
11:18am Tue 12 Feb 13

Hot air.

Any train using the eastern branch at the top of HS2 has to end up in York...

... so whoever operates the trains will have to make arrangements to use York station facilities. There's no onus on York to stump up funds at all.

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purpletimbo says...
11:20am Tue 12 Feb 13

Where does this 30 minute gain keep appearing from, the London service was 100 minutes until they deliberatley slowed it to 110 last year, so that is a 17 minute saving, not half an hour!

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Capt. Dobie says...
11:42am Tue 12 Feb 13

"The project is also expected to create thousands of jobs in the region"

Figure plucked form thin-air or from a coherent and reliable study?

Ridiculous idea asking for CoY residents to pay for this at any level...

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ReginaldBiscuit says...
12:01pm Tue 12 Feb 13

Story keyword - 'May' - You may not have to fund this.

New word - 'Horsemeatmongers' - The number of self-eggrandised individualists and egomaniacs trying to associate their names with this story in a vain attempt to raise their credibility and profile whilst enhancing their career prospects.

Utter nonsense - 'Business Speak' - The language of idiots represented by such gobbledegook as "This will bring real economic benefits to the city", "Sit down", "Meetings" and "Put York on the map". The beauty of Business Speak is that you can vomit and repeatedly excrete the same words in slightly rearranged sentences to produce the same inconsequential and irrelevant garbage.

Apes - 'Predictors' - It is impossible to predict the future. Look at the financial mess the world is in because it turned out that those who thought they could predict the financial future in actual fact, couldn't.

Causality - 'Doesn't exist' - Apes try to put reason and meaning into events when in actual fact, everything that happens is completely random. Too much planning, too many meetings is a bad thing.

Indebtedness - 'United Kingdom' - The most indebted nation on earth. You seriously think the world banks will sanction the most overdrawn student at the university of global finance, the billions that it requires to undertake this project?? Unicorns are real and I've just seen a heard of flying cows.

The pope - 'Harry Redknapp' - odds slashed to 25-1 to be the next pope.

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krites says...
3:17pm Tue 12 Feb 13

The article repeats that there is to be a spur to York. The actual plans seems to shew that the spur is the line towards Leeds whilst it it the main line itself that continues north to Ulleskelf. Similarly on the other side of the country it's a spur towards Manchester with the main line heading on to Wigan. The ECML/WCML fixation with Scotland continues ....

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Pete the Brickie says...
4:15pm Tue 12 Feb 13

If the new line doesn't come into York how can you get a 37 minute time saving? One journey starts in York and ends in London, the other starts in Church Fenton which takes about 37 minutes to get to from York.

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mmarshal says...
4:40pm Tue 12 Feb 13

Pete the Brickie wrote:
If the new line doesn't come into York how can you get a 37 minute time saving? One journey starts in York and ends in London, the other starts in Church Fenton which takes about 37 minutes to get to from York.
Totally agree. I cannot see anybody travelling from York to Church Fenton to save 37 minutes on the onward journey to London; unless of course the hidden plan is to reduce the availability of direct slower trains. In the unlikely event that I'm still around when HS2 arrives, I would prefer to take the slow train rather than journey to Church Fenton then pay inflated prices on HS2. In the meantime, I'm likely to pay increased council tax for something I'll never see, let alone use.

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the butler says...
4:52pm Tue 12 Feb 13

The company that is pushing for this Hs2 line are obviously the ones who have to put the cash down first, then later recover the cost via passenger traffic? Isn't that called doing business?

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emen says...
5:34pm Tue 12 Feb 13

mmarshal wrote:
Pete the Brickie wrote:
If the new line doesn't come into York how can you get a 37 minute time saving? One journey starts in York and ends in London, the other starts in Church Fenton which takes about 37 minutes to get to from York.
Totally agree. I cannot see anybody travelling from York to Church Fenton to save 37 minutes on the onward journey to London; unless of course the hidden plan is to reduce the availability of direct slower trains. In the unlikely event that I'm still around when HS2 arrives, I would prefer to take the slow train rather than journey to Church Fenton then pay inflated prices on HS2. In the meantime, I'm likely to pay increased council tax for something I'll never see, let alone use.
The proposed plan is that the HS2 trains will trundle along the existing line out of York and then join a new dedicated line which will start between Ulleskelf and Church Fenton.

As far as I can see the only reason it's coming to York is so that the line can eventually be extended further north to Scotland and the chances are that will require a dedicated line around York rather than through it.

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Cari6192 says...
5:37pm Tue 12 Feb 13

mmarshal wrote:
Pete the Brickie wrote: If the new line doesn't come into York how can you get a 37 minute time saving? One journey starts in York and ends in London, the other starts in Church Fenton which takes about 37 minutes to get to from York.
Totally agree. I cannot see anybody travelling from York to Church Fenton to save 37 minutes on the onward journey to London; unless of course the hidden plan is to reduce the availability of direct slower trains. In the unlikely event that I'm still around when HS2 arrives, I would prefer to take the slow train rather than journey to Church Fenton then pay inflated prices on HS2. In the meantime, I'm likely to pay increased council tax for something I'll never see, let alone use.
The trains will go to York. The proposed line joins to the existing track just north of Church Fenton before joining the ECML. They won't stop at Church Fenton.

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Caecilius says...
5:45pm Tue 12 Feb 13

mmarshal wrote:
Pete the Brickie wrote:
If the new line doesn't come into York how can you get a 37 minute time saving? One journey starts in York and ends in London, the other starts in Church Fenton which takes about 37 minutes to get to from York.
Totally agree. I cannot see anybody travelling from York to Church Fenton to save 37 minutes on the onward journey to London; unless of course the hidden plan is to reduce the availability of direct slower trains. In the unlikely event that I'm still around when HS2 arrives, I would prefer to take the slow train rather than journey to Church Fenton then pay inflated prices on HS2. In the meantime, I'm likely to pay increased council tax for something I'll never see, let alone use.
HS2 trains aren't going to stop at Church Fenton. The spur from Leeds will join the existing ECML at a point near Church Fenton, that's all: there's not going to be an HS2 station there. The idea is that you'll get on an HS2 train in York and it'll run on the existing ECML track until it reaches the new junction, when it'll transfer onto the high speed line and go to warp speed, so to speak.

So the time it takes to get from York to Church Fenton station on existing trains, which in fact is only 15 minutes at most, is academic.

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Paul Meoff says...
8:10pm Tue 12 Feb 13

Are people really so stupid as to think they will create Church Fenton International as a terminus for HS2? I hope these people are not allowed out on their own.

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CelebrityBoots says...
9:36pm Tue 12 Feb 13

The whole HS2 thing needs a kick up the backside if you ask us

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York1900 says...
10:44pm Tue 12 Feb 13

It is like any thing done by this government it is all ways looking at ways to take more money off you in tax and give you a even poorer service
The only people who seem to benefit is big business and the rich

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Magicman! says...
1:08am Thu 14 Feb 13

As it stands, heading out of York after Holgate junction, the linespeeds as I recall are 60mph, rising to 100mph after St Helens Bridge, then rising to 125mph at Copmanthorpe... as HS2 will have specially slewed tracks and will likely be routed to use Platforms 9/10/11 at York rather than crossing the throat of the station I would expect that on leaving York it'll be about 6 minutes before the trains reach the HS2 line.

Anyway, I have a simple thought: if York was to be asked to contribute to HS2 then I'd like to think Leeds would be asked to contribute at least 1/3 to 1/2 as much again on top, considering there will be more trains along HS2 that will go to Leeds than there will to York. York will get 2 Highspeed Trains Per Hour to/from London whilst Leeds will get either 3 or 4htph to the capital.... and from what I recall of the figures I saw I think it's a similar story for Birmingham.

Also, HS2 trains will not proceed up the WCML to Scotland but will either go to liverpool, chester, or terminate at Preston - there is simply no capacity north of Lancaster to support more trains.

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