Peter Woodman Building new high-speed rail lines between Scotland and London could be worth more than £60bn to the UK economy, a report says today.

Peter Woodman
Building new high-speed rail lines between Scotland and London could be worth more than £60bn to the UK economy, a report says today.

But the lines - one going down the east coast, the other down the west coast - would probably not be operational before 2026, according to planning and engineering consultants Atkins.

Building two new lines, starting from Glasgow and Edinburgh, would give the best economic benefit, says Atkins. The cost of the lines would be about £31bn but they would deliver £63bn worth of economic benefits over the first 60 years.

London to Glasgow journey times could take just three hours while London to Birmingham could come down to an hour.

Atkins says the lines would be necessary as capacity on existing routes could be exhausted within a decade.

The company's transport planning managing director, Andy Southern, said: "It is clear that a high-speed rail network should not only be viewed in terms of its benefit to relieving congestion on the rail network. The economic gain could also be extremely significant.

"Our modelling shows the impact would be felt by local communities as well as the business traveller choosing to go by rail rather than air. There is also potential to reduce overall carbon emissions from transport."