Government reaffirms commitment to Midlands Rail Hub in Queen's Speech

Published: Thursday 12 December 2019

Responding to news of The Midlands Rail Hub being mentioned in the detailed background briefing of today’s Queen’s Speech, Maria Machancoses, Director of Midlands Connect, said:

Today’s Queen’s Speech reaffirmed the new government’s commitment to invest in our flagship Midlands Rail Hub plans. Our £2 billion proposals, which can now move closer to delivery, will enable an additional 24 trains every hour to serve towns and cities including Birmingham, Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Hereford and Worcester.

This commitment is a great statement of intent and we look forward to working with the government to take our plans forward, but it is just the start. In next year’s budget, we call on the Prime Minister to invest in our wider Midlands Engine Rail programme, a £3.5 billion region-wide plan to transform east-west connections with more than 700 new passenger services every day.

Investment in the existing network must also go hand in hand with delivering HS2 in full. Midlands Engine Rail is not possible without the capacity HS2 releases on the existing network, and we urge the government to commit to HS2 as soon as possible.

It's encouraging to see that the Prime Minister is putting the Midlands at the centre of his government's promised infrastructure revolution, one that’s designed to put our communities first, level up the country and unleash our potential.