'HS2' cash used to patch up SE1 roads and pavements
Government funds notionally reallocated from the cancelled second phase of the High Speed 2 rail line north of Birmingham have been used to repair road surfaces and pavements in three streets north of the Old Kent Road, Southwark Council said this week.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak announced in his Conservative Party conference speech last autumn that the Government would no longer proceed with the second phase of the HS2 rail link north of Birmingham, and would instead spend money on other transport projects around the country.
Local authorities receiving cash theoretically reallocated from HS2 are required by the government to publicly acknowledge the funding, so Southwark Council this week quietly published a notice to say it had received £189,000 from this Department for Transport fund.
Some of the cash allocated to Southwark has been spent on subsidence repairs in three SE1 streets north of the Old Kent Road: Marlborough Grove, Rowcross Street and Rolls Road.
Rolls Road – which is named after Bermondsey-born Charles Rolls, co-founder of Rolls-Royce – runs along the south side of what was once the extensive Bricklayers Arms railway depot.
When news that some of the claimed HS2 savings would be spent on London potholes was revealed last December, Labour's shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh said: “First Sunak cancels the biggest rail investment in the north in a generation. Then he promises to ‘join up’ the north and Midlands with ‘Network North’.
“Now it turns out ‘Network North’ actually means … repairing roads in London. You couldn’t make it up.”
