BUSINESS leaders have welcomed news that the HS2 high-speed rail link will come to West Yorkshire.

But they warned that regional rail links must also be improved if Yorkshire is to benefit fully.

The Government has announced that HS2 will extend from London to Birmingham and on to the East Midlands, Sheffield and Leeds by 2032.

Officials say the £32.7bn project will create at least 100,000 jobs.

There will be a new station at Leeds and one at Meadowhall, Sheffield, though Huddersfield is likely to see slightly faster connections to Birmingham and London via Manchester.

The news was confirmed by Prime Minister David Cameron at a Cabinet meeting in Leeds.

Steven Leigh, head of policy at the Lockwood-based Mid Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, said: “We have always said HS2 must come to West Yorkshire because it is supposed to help address the North-South divide.

“What is important in order for the wider population to access high-speed rial is the connecting services.

“We want to ensure that the trans-Pennine and regional rail services will be fit for purpose and people will be able to get to Leeds and Sheffield to use HS2.

“What our members have been saying is that we need regional trains that are clean, reliable and as fast as we can possibly get them to provide good connectivity into HS2.”

Kirklees Council leader Clr Mehboob Khan, said HS2 represented an opportunity for a decade of economic growth.

He said: “The North-South divide has widened in recent years, and this high-speed rail link will ensure that businesses located in Yorkshire are not at a competitive disadvantage in the future.

“The Leeds City Region as a whole is in a great position to benefit from this potential increased opportunity – but the positive impacts can start now.

“I will be campaigning for local construction companies to be used, with reliance on local labour and the local supply chain.

“Ultimately, the construction project itself can be the shot in the arm our economy needs.

“Then once the line is nearing completion, the north of Kirklees can directly benefit from the reduced commute times to the major economic centres. For example Dewsbury will be only around seven minutes train travel and then a very short walk away from the proposed site of the new HS2 station.

“Also – importantly from an environmental point of view – the new line will release capacity on the existing rail network for more freight to be transported by train, freeing some of the congestion on our major roads.”

Clr Khan added: “A new train line alone will not solve all the economic problems the north of the country has – but by taking a proactive stance, allying these plans to the proposals we are already working on around other major transport investment in West Yorkshire, our plans to improve access to high speed broadband and our employment site proposals, we are putting the blocks in place to benefit from any economic boost HS2 can provide.”

Peter Marshall, who chairs the Huddersfield Penistone Sheffield Rail Users Association also welcomed the news.

“The government announcement of the route for the high sped rail line to Leeds puts Huddersfield passengers less than 30 miles from any one of three new HS2 stations.

“In addition to the new termini in Leeds and Manchester, the Meadowhall station will be just an hour away, bringing Nottingham, Derby and Birmingham within easy journey times.

“However, in its announcement today, the Department for Transport fails to mention the line from Meadowhall to Huddersfield, raising fears that it doesn’t recognise this line as a major feeder route to the high speed line.

“The Penistone Line needs to see major investment to increase capacity for the 1.3 million passengers who use the line annually and provide access to Britain’s newest rail line.

“As neighbouring routes are electrified, there is a great danger in the Penistone Line become a diesel dessert with ageing trains running an hourly service over much of its single line”.

Clr James Lewis, chairman of public transport body Metro in West Yorkshire, said HS2 would provide a huge boost to the local economy – reducing journey times from London to Leeds to just 80 minutes and from Birmingham to Leeds to under an hour as well as free capacity on the existing local rail network.

But he said: “For the full potential of HS2 to be felt in Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield and Wakefield and the whole City Region as well as Leeds itself, we need to ensure that by the time high-speed trains start arriving we have a local transport network that is ‘HS2-ready’.

“We want to see this announcement followed up by a commitment from HS2 Ltd to invest in the existing rail network and unlock the £12bn of benefits identified in the Yorkshire Rail Network Study”.

The proposed second phase of HS2 has a completion date of 2032 with a route from Birmingham to Nottingham, Sheffield and Leeds (116 miles) and another from Birmingham to Manchester (95 miles).

The phase one London to Birmingham line will be about 140 miles long.

The route from Birmingham to Leeds will have new stations at Toton, Nottingham; Meadowhall Shopping Centre, Sheffield; and New Lane, Leeds

Journey times between Leeds and London Euston will be cut from 2hr 12mins to 1hr 22mins.

From Meadowhall to Leeds, the proposed high-speed rail route will run east of Barnsley and Wakefield. A spur will connect with the existing East Coast Main Line nine miles south-west of York.

Another spur to Leeds will run in the existing Castleford to Leeds corridor before rising above street level into the new station at Leeds New Lane.

Overall, the Government estimates HS2 will support more than 100,000 jobs across Britain.