I spoke last night at an event arranged by the Institute of Civil Engineers and the Institute of Directors – the theme was the High Speed 2 train lines.

The fastest rain I have been on - 267mph in Shanghai!

I was in good company – the main speaker was Prof. Andrew McNaughton – the Chief Engineer for the line. And his outline of the scheme – which is probably 15 years away – was fascinating. We need to re-think our perspectives about rail travel if these lines can be built. They will be new lines because the current lines are not capable of carrying this new rolling stock at anticipated speeds of 200mph. This could put London within reach in under an hour…

My perspective on the proposal was one of huge support. The location of the lines has not yet been determined – but there is a possibility of an ‘East Midlands’ stop – which would route North to Leeds and south to Birmingham and then onto London. A ‘Y’ shaped line is envisaged at the moment – the split would be at Birmingham – with Manchester the other terminal.

We must make sure as a region that we get a station. Perhaps the audience was not surprised by my preference for a Nottingham stop – although I did understand the difficulties of bringing a Station into the centre – the example given for one of these stations was something 1km long!

A ‘Parkway’ type station is probably the answer – this is as opposed to the present Midland mainline station known as Parkway. There was much discussion about the location – with suggestions about the airport being ideal. I disagree – East Midlands Airport has real issues with identity. No one knows where the East Midlands is! The sharp intake of breath was when Andrew asked whether we needed the airport if Birmingham was 25 minutes away… You need to rethink the whole infrastructure!

I can see the logic in a station being along the A52. The A453 is a nightmare and looks to remain that way after the Government put the widening on hold – again.

But the key message from the talk was that the three Cities (Nottingham, Derby and Leicester) need to get their act together. We need to get something agreed so that the master planners of these lines don’t let the new trains whistle by us. You can’t have three stops – stopping slows the trains down!

With the demise of emda – this is going to be a real challenge. The replacement LEP’s don’t bring the three cities together.

It’s at times like this that you realise that emda had a major role to play in our region. And the LEP’s are going to take some time to get going.

Time to stop bickering guys – and get some consensus… and fast.

(I will do another blog about my talk – which was primarily about the impact on property and business if we got a line / station)