High Speed Rail and Agglomeration Benefits (October 2009)
In September 2007, the Northern Way published evidence on
the economic impact of investment in better and faster rail
links between the North's cities, London and the rest of
the Britain . An integral part of that evidence was
an assessment of the Wider Impacts (principally
through agglomeration) that a high speed rail network could
bring the North of England. These Wider Impacts were previously
known as Wider Economic Benefits. Before the Northern
Way's analysis in 2007, work had been undertaken to
assess the significant and substantial conventional benefits of
high speed rail but these Wider Impacts of high
speed rail had not been assessed.
Since the publication of the Northern Way's evidence in
2007, the Department for Transport has revised its guidance for
the calculation of agglomeration benefits. This report
recalculates the wider impacts as £13bn nationally
using the Department for Transport's current guidance and
using the same high speed rail network that was assumed in the
September 2007 report. Of the of £13bn nationally,
£5bn of the wider impacts are in the North.
