New hopes that HS2 will miss Culcheth

THE prospect of the HS2 high speed railway project slicing through Culcheth appears to be receding.
A new announcement by HS2 Ltd – the company planning the project – indicates they have decided there is no business case for extending the line to Scotland.
And that could be good news for Culcheth, according to local businessman Paul Taylor, from Taylor Business Park. (pictured)
The Golborne link – the part of HS2 that would run through Culcheth – was intended to provide a link to a train service depot at Golborne and a potential continuation north to Scotland.
It has already been hinted that the train service depot is likely to be relocated to Crewe – already a rail hub for the North West – where there is plenty of brownfield land to develop.
Dropping the extension to Scotland – while it has caused fury north of the border – means the line through Culcheth is even less likely to be built.
Mr Taylor said:  “This is great news for Warrington and Culcheth. We would benefit from the increased connectivity at Crewe which will still service HS2 compatible trains from Warrington Bank Quay which can use the high speed track from Crewe, and it might well mean that the expensive link that runs through our village is finally struck off the map.
“The run up to Scotland has always been a very expensive part of the proposed route that doesn’t speed up journey times by much, and that part of the West Coast Mainline doesn’t suffer from capacity issues in the way that it does when it reaches the North West of England. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. Hopefully there will be more information coming soon now that the election is out of the way and government departments are no longer in purdah.”