Responding to the report HS2 Regional Economic Impacts, Matthew Sinclair, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said:
“The Government has squandered taxpayers’ money on a cynical attempt to win over the many, many people who think this white elephant is the wrong way to spend tens of billions of pounds of their money.
“If ministers want to develop a new appraisal method for transport projects then they should do that and see how it affects the business case for a range of strategic alternatives. That will help test whether the model is reliable and provide useful evidence about which projects offer the best value for money. Instead they have just decided that this specific project alone will be held to a new standard.
“The report is based on the dodgy assumptions in the Government’s own business case and the additional services they have promised, despite their budget actually relying on cuts to existing services.
“This is not a serious attempt to assess the merits of HS2, just another expensive propaganda exercise. The Government must scrap HS2 and look again at less grandiose, but better value, projects that can deliver the capacity needed on Britain’s rail network.”