Stone Town Council voted unanimously at a meeting on Thursday to oppose a bid for a HS2 station in Stoke-on-Trent.
Instead of a HS2 stop in Crewe, Stoke-on-Trent City Council wants a route which will see high-speed trains follow the proposed HS2 line from Lichfield to Stone but then use the current lines to Stoke, which they say will minimise its impact.
However, councillors on Stone Town Council’s General Purposes Committee voiced their concerns at this plan and their fears about its impact on Stone.
Stone Town Council leader Philip Jones said today: “This diversion of the already planned route would send it through the middle of Stone, either through Crown Meadow or Aston Lodge. Introducing the item, I referred to Stoke-on-Trent City Council leader’s comment that this “would supercharge Stoke’s economy” and suggested that he was dreaming if he thought that 20 minutes off a commute to London would have bankers living in Burslem and lawyers in Longton.”
Stone Town Council’s clerk, Les Trigg, was instructed by councillors to write to the Department of Transport “with the strongest objection from the Council”.
There is more information on Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s campaign HERE.
Related Posts:
1 comment
Keith Lumley
I never cease to be amazed at how short sighted or blinkered some people – especially councillors – can be. We had exactly the same problem when I worked for Network Rail and we upgraded the west coast main line so that Virgin could run their trains at 125mph and introduce a very high frequency timetable. Many towns of various sizes wanted the fast trains to stop at their station because they had ‘economic benefits’ to offer. The whole point of a fast or high speed line is that it does not stop at every urban sprawl along the route because it then becomes a slow service. For this reason alone Stoke doesn’t stand a chance. If it was to stop at Stoke then why not Stafford, the county town or Wolverhampton in the industrial Black Country or other towns along the route that have something to offer?