High speed rail: Investing in Britain’s future consultation summary report - Publications

Publications

Executive summary

This report provides a summary of the responses to the Government’s consultation on High speed rail: Investing in Britain’s future.

The Government believes investing in a national high speed rail network is the best value for money solution for enhancing rail capacity and performance in the United Kingdom. It launched a consultation on the proposed high speed rail strategy and its proposed route for an initial high speed line from London to the West Midlands. The consultation ran for five months, closing on 29 July 2011.

The Government received 54,909 responses to this consultation. About 40% of the responses were submitted through the consultation website; the remaining 60% included paper response forms, individual letters and emails, detailed reports and organised responses. Close to 15,000 responses were identified as part of organised submissions. A response is considered part of an organised submission if its content is identical or nearly identical to numerous other responses, e.g. consisting of a pre-printed response postcard to which respondents add their details.

Members of the public submitted the great majority of responses. Organisations which responded included statutory agencies, local authorities, businesses and various representative groups. Responses came from regions across the UK, with concentrations in postcode areas in proximity to the proposed route from London to the West Midlands.

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Erratum

Please note the first paragraph under the heading ‘Question 6’ on page 15 of the above report should read as follows:

A total of 36,918 consultation responses comment on the Appraisal of Sustainability (AoS), including 614 which express satisfaction or endorsement and 158 who express support with some caveats; 536 which offer comments or suggestions, and, 14,170 which express concerns that the AoS is insufficient.