Plan for £30bn high-speed rail link
Press Association: 18 July 2008
A plan for a new north-south £30 billion high-speed rail line which will link to Europe will be unveiled next week by councils opposed to Heathrow airport expansion.
Running initially along the line of the M1, the route would make it easier for people in Scotland and northern England to get to Heathrow, reducing the need for internal connecting flights.
European links via the Channel Tunnel would mean travellers could get from Sheffield to Paris in three hours, Manchester to Amsterdam in four hours and Leeds to Frankfurt in five-and-a-half hours.