AS a business group we noticed with interest that the proposed high-speed rail link will, according to the UK Government, give a £3 billion economic boost to Scotland by bringing it closer to England's main cities ("Minister promises Scotland £3bn boost from high-speed rail", The Herald, July 25).
While this is to be welcomed, Scotland needs better than this and indeed recent reports from the UK Government have cited plans to build a third high-speed rail link between northern English cities, but with no mention of Scotland or its cities.
We recently called for an extension of the high-speed rail link (HS2) to Scotland, noting that the rest of the UK is an important market for Scottish firms and that Scotland is the second largest "export" market for rUK firms, after the United States. We also highlighted that as a nation we need to boost investment in economic infrastructure by more than £400 million a year if transport links and other infrastructure are to be brought up to the standard of the world's top advanced competitor economies.
In this context the development of HS2 rail links would improve transport links with the rest of the UK and deliver significant economic benefits (the business case puts the net benefits of phase one and phase two at £70bn, and possibly as high as £99bn), whether Scotland is independent or not. The majority of these wider economic impacts will be delivered when HS2 moves into phase two, north of Birmingham.
However, the planning of the project has assumed that the construction will start in London and consideration should be given to also constructing connecting high-speed services from Scotland. This would improve transport connections between Scotland and Northern English cities as well as with London.
Delivering HS2 rail links to Scotland is not only good for Scotland, but also for the rest of the UK and the economic benefits of extending this north of the Border more than outweigh the costs.
Graeme Blackett,
N-56, 112 George Street,
Edinburgh.
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