News from Sheffield Labour

Blomfield – “Unbelievable Tories miss out Sheffield in rail plans”

Paul Blomfield, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Sheffield Central, has today angrily attacked new plans for high speed rail published by the Conservatives which fail to include Sheffield. The Tories plan to develop high-speed rail links between London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, but to by-pass Sheffield.

Paul Blomfield said:

“High speed rail is going to be vitally important to the future economy of Britain, connecting our biggest cities. It’s unbelievable that the Tories have ignored Sheffield. Their decision to link London and Leeds via Manchester, instead of the current route through Sheffield, is an insult. It would make the London-Leeds journey time 30 minutes shorter than London-Sheffield.

“Sheffield is England’s third biggest city, how they can miss us out? The Tories are showing that if they get back into Government it would be disastrous for Sheffield again, just like last time.

“The Labour Government is developing its own plans for extending high speed rail to the north and I’ll be lobbying hard to make sure that Sheffield is part of the new route. The East Coast Main Line linking us to London has never been better, so we must build on this service to make sure Sheffield has high-speed links to London and other major cities.”

He added:

“The Tories showed under Thatcher and Major that they don’t care about Sheffield, when they attacked our industries and starved us of investment. Now, under David Cameron, they’re showing again that they don’t care.”

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