CONSERVATIVE Party deputy chairman Lee Anderson said he would support the scrapping of the northern leg of HS2 because it does not have public support and costs are “out of control”.
He told GB News: “The whole country’s got to pay for this. Every single taxpayer in the UK has got to pay for this project, and it’s spiralling out of control.
“Now, I’m easy with it. If it goes ahead, I’ll support it, if they scrap it, I’ll support that, either way, but we need a decision and we need it very, very soon, because like I say the costs each week are out of control.”
In a discussion with Patrick Christys, he continued: “Out in the streets of Ashfield, Nottinghamshire and the Midlands, ask them about levelling up and they’ll say sort out the roads, schools, hospitals – they won’t say build another railway called HS2. That would be at the bottom of the agenda.
“What I want in my community and across the north and in the Midlands is for a little old lady to be able to get on a bus in one village to get to the next village.
“I don’t want that little old lady sat there looking through her living room window and seeing a train going by at 220 miles an hour, a train that she could never get on ever in her life.”
He added: “I think if you gave the public a choice, especially in where I live, between high speed rail and better busses and tram services and local regional railways, they’ll go for the latter, obviously.
“It makes common sense and it’s cheaper.”
