This bold vision will keep Britain on track It was appropriate for the Coalition to choose a Cabinet awayday in Leeds yesterday to announce the extension of the HS2 high-speed railway. For this ambitious project is all about straddling the North-South divide and making this country a more integrated economy. The ability to travel from the north of England to the capital in little more than an hour can transform the business map of Britain. The first phase of the scheme, from London to Birmingham, ran into such ferocious opposition that there seemed a real prospect last summer of it being quietly shelved. Yesterday's announcement scotches those fears by setting out the route beyond Birmingham, to Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds - and in time, we hope, Scotland. The first mainline railway to be built north of London in 120 years, it is a long overdue declaration that Britain still has the ambition and confidence to undertake bold infrastructure projects. The £33 billion cost over the period of construction is bearable and the economic benefits should more than repay the investment. HS1, the direct link from St Pancras to the Channel Tunnel, cost £7.3 billion to build and is now expected to produce a total economic benefit of £17.6 billion. This is why yesterday's announcement has been greeted so positively in the North. Civic leaders know that a fast link both to the capital and to European destinations will be of great benefit to their local economies. If we have any reservations, it is about speed of delivery. The first phase, to Birmingham, will not be completed until 2026 and it will be 2033 before HS2 reaches Leeds and Manchester. This is excessively slow. The Channel Tunnel took six years to construct, the same time that it took Isambard Kingdom Brunel to build the 152 miles of the Great Western Railway from London to Bridgwater. Having embarked on this great enterprise, we could show more urgency. It is also to be hoped that, as the Government claims, pausing work on the spur to Heathrow until the Airports Commission reports in 2015 won't have an impact on the final delivery time. That said, ministers are to be congratulated for their boldness. There are rarely many votes in such visionary projects, only a great deal of vocal opposition from environmental and other interest groups. But the Government knows that a railway system that would be readily recognisable to the Victorians is not fit for the 21st century. HS2 will change the face of Britain as dramatically as did the building of the motorway network - which also met the most intense opposition, but without which this country would, quite literally, be a much poorer place.