Businesses push government to extend HS2 line
The High Speed Rail Group (HSRG) has put several requests to the Treasury's spending review and said the rail route needed to be "reset to an irreducible Euston-Crewe core".
The high speed line north of Birmingham to Manchester was scrapped by the previous government.
A spokesperson for the government said they were committed to "improving rail connectivity" across the Midlands and northern England.
The HSRG is made up of businesses involved in the industry including Arup, Hitachi and Alstom.
In its submission to the Treasury, the group makes six "key asks" of the government.
These include to change HS2 to a "Euston-Crewe core" and fund the connection from the West Midlands to Crewe rather than the current plan to stop in Handsacre near Lichfield, Staffordshire, north of Birmingham.
They also called for a more cost-effective approach to the London Euston plan by building to a "plain vanilla design".
The group added that the government needed to extend the safeguarding restrictions on the land between Birmingham and Crewe.
These were planning tools used to protect land from conflicting development but were lifted in January 2024.
The group also suggested HS2 should be connected to the West Coast Mainline 10 miles (16km) south of Crewe, rather than on the approach to the town's station.
They said this "yields the potential for a further substantial cost-saving" - although no estimate is currently available.
In the submission, the HSRG further added: "There is currently a risk of overreaction and cutting HS2 short and, as a result, diminishing both the national economic growth stimulus HS2 provides, and short-changing the national account".
Jim Steer, one of the directors of the group, told BBC Radio Stoke they felt HS2 had been cut back "in a way that we think makes it very hard to deliver real economic value".
He added the line going to Crewe was significant because HS2 was always planned to join the existing railway and it was needed to bypass a "bottleneck" in Staffordshire.
Otherwise he claimed the scheme would not lead to more capacity on railway lines.
A spokesperson for the Department for Transport said they were committed to improving rail travel in the Midlands and northern England.
"We are currently reviewing the position we have inherited on HS2 and will set out next steps in due course," they added.
The spending review is set to be completed by the spring.
Read more stories from Cheshire on the BBC and follow BBC North West on X. For more local politics coverage, BBC Politics North West is on BBC One on Sunday at 10:00am and on BBC iPlayer.
HS2 Euston link funding announced in Budget
Planning protection ends on scrapped HS2 route
HS2 blew billions - here's how and why
High Speed Rail Group
HS2
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Bloomberg
38 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Galaxy's Mike Novogratz Says Crypto Treasury Rush Has Peaked
Michael Novogratz says the rush to create companies that hold cryptocurrencies on their balance sheets has likely peaked. 'We've probably gone through peak treasury company issuance,' Novogratz, founder and chief executive of Galaxy Digital, said Tuesday on the firm's second-quarter earnings call. 'The question now is which of the existing companies become monsters.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Fundstrat's Tom Lee: Owning Bitcoin Is Like Owning Land Under A McDonald's
Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) is undergoing a reframing in how institutions may treat it, not as a volatile asset, but as digital infrastructure akin to real estate. What Happened: Fundstrat co-founder and Bitmine (AMEX:BMNR) chairman Tom Lee drew a sharp analogy in an conversation with Bitwise, saying Bitcoin as a treasury asset is like owning the land underneath a McDonald's franchise, not running the business. "It's better to be the landowner of a McDonald's franchise than the operator," Lee said, explaining that corporations may begin viewing Bitcoin as a foundational asset — one that provides long-term capital leverage much like commercial real estate does in traditional business models. This shift, according to Lee, is a structural rethinking of how companies manage their treasuries. Traditionally, firms preferred renting space or outsourcing infrastructure, similar to how telecoms once undervalued the ownership of cell towers. But just as telecom towers grew into stand-alone, multi-billion dollar businesses, Lee sees Bitcoin following the same path—as infrastructure with compounding network value. Also Read: Why It Matters: Lee further elaborated on this thesis in an interview with CNBC, where he remained bullish on both equity markets and digital assets despite short-term market consolidation. Lee noted that the recent pullback in equities was a consolidation phase, predicting the S&P 500 could return to its all-time highs around 6,500–6,600 in the coming weeks, and reach 7,000 within the next 12 months. As chairman of Bitmine, a newly emerging ETH (CRYPTO: ETH)-focused public company, Lee noted that Bitmine now holds nearly $3 billion in Ether, making it the largest ETH treasury in the world and third-largest overall in crypto. The company recently secured investment from legendary investor Bill Miller, further signaling institutional confidence in long-term crypto plays. Lee argued that weakening labor data and cooling inflation could prompt a dovish pivot by the Fed this fall, potentially igniting a broader market rally that benefits both equities and digital assets. Read Next: Image: Shutterstock Up Next: Transform your trading with Benzinga Edge's one-of-a-kind market trade ideas and tools. Click now to access unique insights that can set you ahead in today's competitive market. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? This article Fundstrat's Tom Lee: Owning Bitcoin Is Like Owning Land Under A McDonald's originally appeared on © 2025 Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
US Plans Record $100 Billion Bill Sale as Borrowing Needs Mount
(Bloomberg) -- The US government plans to borrow $100 billion in a single Treasury debt sale this week, an unprecedented figure that showcases both the magnitude of its borrowing needs and its ability to attract investors. PATH Train Service Resumes After Fire at Jersey City Station Mayor Asked to Explain $1.4 Billion of Wasted Johannesburg Funds Chicago Curbs Hiring, Travel to Tackle $1 Billion Budget Hole All Hail the Humble Speed Hump The Treasury said on Tuesday that it will auction $100 billion of four-week bills on Thursday, a record for the maturity and an increase of $5 billion from the previous week. The department has been boosting bill sales to rebuild its cash balance after the debt ceiling was lifted at the beginning of July. But the mammoth size is also likely a harbinger of growing bill auctions ahead to help plug the federal budget deficit. Last week, the Treasury signaled it will rely more on the shortest-dated securities to fund the spending gap at least until 2026, after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in June that yields on longer maturities were too high to consider increasing sales of such debt. The department said it anticipates additional increases in October. 'The increase is just the start given Treasury's desire to focus on additional bill issuance in the coming quarters and years,' said Gennadiy Goldberg, head of US interest-rate strategy at TD Securities. 'So while markets will likely focus on the size, bill auction sizes are only likely to grow further in the coming years.' To put the size of the four-week offering in context, the government will also sell a combined $125 billion of coupon-bearing securities this week: $58 billion of three-year notes on Tuesday, $42 billion of 10-year notes Wednesday and $25 billion of 30-year debt Thursday. The four-week bill offer is also equivalent to more than a quarter of the total amount of bonds the UK sold in its 2024-2025 fiscal year. The latest T-bill increase follows the $5 billion boost in the six-week tenor that was announced last week, to be sold Tuesday. Treasury will also sell $65 billion of 17-week bills Wednesday and $85 billion of 8-week bills on Thursday. Both amounts are unchanged. With cash flowing into US money-market funds, which now hold about $7.4 trillion, there appears to be ample demand for the upsized bill sales, at least for now. Fed Watch One potential complication for money-fund managers is that the Federal Reserve is expected to lower interest rates again as soon as September. When rate cuts are seen as being on the horizon, as has been the case for months, the funds tend to extend the weighted average maturity of their holdings, favoring bills that will carry higher rates for longer. As a result, the weighted average maturity of government money funds — which invest primarily in securities such as T-bills, repurchase agreements and agency debt — has been around 40 days since May, near a record high, according to Bank of America. To BofA strategists Katie Craig and Mark Cabana, that means the funds may not have much capacity to extend and absorb bill supply at tenors longer than 1.5 months. Still, at this point there's little reason to worry about a broad decline in appetite for T-bills on the part of money funds, given that even those that aren't Treasury-only funds use the securities to help fulfill daily liquidity requirements, according to Peter Crane, president of Crane Data LLC. To be sure, Treasury has already borrowed larger amounts via a single security, but those were created via a series of auctions spread out over months. For example, the single largest Treasury on record is a $335 billion issue that matured in April. It began as a $46 billion 1-year bill sold in April 2024 and was expanded via a succession of bill auctions over the following year. The Trump administration has said that its economic policies will lift US growth and increase the Treasury's revenue — reducing deficits. However, most analysts expect outsize borrowing needs for years to come, suggesting the government eventually will need to boost sales of debt across maturities. One reason is that doing so would prevent bills from comprising too great a share of US debt outstanding. The ratio at the end of June level was about 20%. That's the level that the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, an outside panel, recommended last year that bills should average over time. --With assistance from Elizabeth Stanton and David Goodman. (Adds comparison to UK issuance in 7th paragraph.) Russia's Secret War and the Plot to Kill a German CEO AI Flight Pricing Can Push Travelers to the Limit of Their Ability to Pay Government Steps Up Campaign Against Business School Diversity What Happens to AI Startups When Their Founders Jump Ship for Big Tech How Podcast-Obsessed Tech Investors Made a New Media Industry ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
