Recommendation 20

Both the Department and the West Midlands Combined Authority provided examples of how cities and regions that stand to benefit from High Speed 2 have ambitious plans for how to capitalise on the opportunity that High Speed 2 provides. For example, the development of public transport links in Birmingham and Wolverhampton, and the construction of new housing in Birmingham City Centre. The Department told us that there were examples of where benefits realisation work was happening, but that its next step was to develop a “programmatic” approach to bringing together government departments, local authorities and private developers to ensure that the benefits were realised.50