HS2 cash to be used to electrify the north Wales mainline

There is a long-standing row over whether HS2 actually benefits people in Wales

The north Wales mainline is to be electrified using £1bn that was earmarked for HS2, the prime minister has said.

Rishi Sunak announced HS2 will only run from London to Birmingham and not on to Manchester because of spiralling costs.

Money will instead be used for alternative projects across the UK, including the one in north Wales.

Business leaders in north Wales had called HS2 a "vanity project for England" and welcomed its demise.

"Today's announcement will unlock north Wales' unique potential by transforming its economy and infrastructure," said Welsh Secretary David TC Davies after the announcement.

"For too long the people of north Wales have been ignored by an incompetent Labour Welsh government in Cardiff Bay - but the UK government is correcting that wrong.

"Under the Conservatives, north Wales is being given the attention it righty deserves."

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The Welsh government said it welcomed the proposal but described the proposed £1bn of funding "a finger in the air figure".

Lee Waters, deputy climate change minister, said the Welsh government had not been consulted on the project.

Mr Waters said the project was "nowhere near the top of the list" of rail priorities in Wales and it will take "at least 10 years".

"We have no idea of the cost of it. A billion pounds has been quoted, this is a finger in the air figure and I've no idea where that's come from," he said.

Plaid Cymru Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts said Wales was still owed "billions in funding" for spending on the first phase of HS2.

"The only way to resolve this saga is to fully devolve rail infrastructure to Wales, transferring the billions owed through the Barnett formula," she said.

"That would allow the people of Wales to choose how to invest in our nation.

"With Keir Starmer's Labour Party refusing to make that commitment, only Plaid Cymru speaks for Wales."

Maria Hinfelaar, vice-chancellor of Wrexham University, said "half an HS2" was "actually worse than useless" and "totally irrelevant".

"I would've been supportive of a fully-completed HS2 from London to Manchester, it would have benefitted us as a university," she told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast.

"We have 3,000 international students, many that fly into London. To tell them they could get on this train, it would have been a selling point."

She called on investment to improve links between north Wales and Cardiff, London and the north west of England.

HS2 had been classified an England and Wales project - with the UK government arguing that HS2 would boost reliability, connectivity and capacity on routes across the UK, including services into Wales.

A station at Crewe was earmarked as an interchange for north Wales, and because of this, Wales was initially denied any consequential funding.

Wednesday's conference was Rishi Sunak's first speech to the Conservative conference as prime minister

Askar Sheibani, chairman of Deeside Business Forum which represents 2,000 members and supporters, was scathing about the original project.

"We did not believe this vanity project in England would have any benefit for north Wales. We were never consulted," he told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast.

His group straddles the Wales-England border in Flintshire and Cheshire, with a meeting and debate on the initial HS2 plans showing little support.

He believes more benefit for north Wales would have come from improving links to the two major international airports in north west England - Liverpool and Manchester - as well as the port of Holyhead on Anglesey.

He added: "We were ignored as usual and never consulted. This is a result of their madness."

Mr Sheibani said firms he represented had been opposed to HS2 for more than a decade and the return on the investment was "abysmally low".

Askar Sheibani called HS2 a "silly vanity project"

Analysis by Gareth Lewis, BBC Wales political editor

Wales has got something, having previously had nothing, and now has something that might or might not be as good as what it felt it should have had.

HS2 is officially an England and Wales project, justified by quicker journeys via Crewe. But it never really washed - Wales wouldn't have had a millimetre of high speed track.

And it meant Wales missed out on equivalent funding, as is the way when a project is designated England-only. It could have been as much as £5bn.

Now Wales has the promise of £1bn to electrify the North Wales mainline, although at time of writing, with no confirmed timescale.

It is much-needed and much-demanded and should mean quicker, cleaner and more frequent services.

Will this wash with voters and businesses in a part of the world where seven seats will be keenly contested at the next general election?

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