Consultation into plans to build a second high speed rail link connecting London and Birmingham ends on July 29 and 14 local authorities have already formed a consortium opposing the plans. But their action raises a difficult question: how far should localism be allowed to impede or obstruct national infrastructure projects? Alan Goodrum and Cllr Martin Tett give their views.

One of the saddest sights in local government is to see a grown up chief executive buying a railway magazine at W H Smiths. This is not a reflection of the current financial climate, children or grandchildren, escapism or regression.

Fourteen local authorities have come together under the banner of the 51m group

It is the considered need to read up on the Department of Transport’s engineering fantasy: HS2. The choice of that well-known original station bookstall is deliberate - W H Smith started at Euston whose customers will of course suffer many of the costs of reconstruction and delay if the project is implemented.

The project raises serious issues.

Greg Clark, minister for decentralisation, states in his plain guide to localism that centralised, top-down government ‘leaves people feeling “done to” and imposed upon’. The difficulty comes when a ‘matter of national interest’ comes into direct conflict with that which local people hold dear, and the proposed high-speed rail, HS2, project, on which the public is currently being consulted, is a good case in point.

Fourteen local authorities have come together under the banner of the 51m group, so named because every single Parliamentary constituency across the entire country will have to stump up at least £51 million to fund the HS2 behemoth. For those who like figures, it's around £1,000 per household. That's assuming the estimated £33 billion costs for the two-phase project remain on target, and historically, few do - Concorde, the IT system for the NHS, the Channel Tunnel and HS1 to name just some notable examples.

If localism had real power, HS2 would probably be dead in its tracks already. But as this is a matter of national interest, decisions will be made by Parliament and it is on the national platform we argue our case.

We do not believe HS2 is in the national interest, and our case is backed up with a strong, unequivocal case - yet in the early stages, the transport secretary Philip Hammond rolled out the trusty ‘nimby’ label against us. He has since had to retract that comment, largely because the label just couldn't stick.

51m is not against high speed rail per se, but it must be the right project and properly justified. The Government should not spend £billions, simply because high speed rail is a modern and glamorous form of infrastructure, particularly where smaller, less expensive and more quickly implemented transport schemes would give far greater benefits in environmental, social and transport terms. As Sir Rod Eddington said in his 2007 transport study: ‘…because the UK is already well connected, the key economic challenge is therefore to improve the performance of the existing network ... There are very high returns from making best use of existing networks [as] large projects with speculative benefits and relying on untested technology, are unlikely to generate attractive returns.’

The evidence shows that HS2 would largely be used by those in the highest income brackets (and many of those for leisure purposes). In essence HS2 is a massive public subsidy to the well off, with at best some doubtful economic benefits. There is a long history of over optimistic forecasting by the rail industry, both in terms of passenger forecasts and costs. Schemes such as this are developed by those who have a strong interest in them.

The issues which arise on the current high speed case are:

• There are much cheaper incremental alternatives, which can meet the forecast demand, and in a quicker and more responsive manner.
• Demand forecasts are optimistic.
• The rail industry has a poor record on passenger forecasting.
• The HS2 service provision of 18 trains per hour is undeliverable.
• It won’t reduce overall air travel and will have no climate change benefits
• The financial benefits assumed are too high, particularly as assumptions about all time spent on trains being ‘wasted’ are out of date. Most business people find time spent working on trains some of the most productive.
• The scheme will have little impact in rebalancing the regional economy, in contrast to local and regional schemes that offer practical benefits.
• It creates large disbenefits to many existing rail users.
• Major construction impacts at Euston which I referred to earlier.
• No justification for Heathrow and HS1 links.
• HS2 is critically different from the European examples Department for transport rely upon.

This is the core of our 51m’s evidence to the Commons transport select committee considering it this month, but how can the Big Society, parish, district and county councils and the myriad HS2 action groups and alliances get our voice heard without being damned by being just local Nimbys?

We believe the transport select committee is a good start - the overview and scrutiny arm of Parliament and perhaps the only forum where a genuinely open debate will take place.

The department for transport consultation on the High Speed Rail proposal ends on 29 July and deals with both the London to Birmingham section and Leeds and Manchester (the Y network). However, the roadshows are confined to the Leeds and Manchester section. The public are entitled to rely on the information in the consultation though there does not seem to have been any real engagement with the public, as opposed to stakeholders beyond Birmingham.

The executive decision making process focuses on what view the secretary of state for transport will take in the autumn, which will then be followed by a hybrid bill to promote the route (most likely the first section to Birmingham). The choice of this method is in itself interesting, as it combines both public and private interests. Our advice is that it will be almost impossible to get a hearing of our wider strategic and economic points once the proposal reaches that stage. But is this really the right mechanism to hear all the arguments? Wasn’t the Infrastructure Planning Commission and its successor supposed to fulfil that role?

The real concern is that the Government’s charge of Nimbyism is an inevitable consequence of the decision-making method it has chosen. Where was the national debate on the strategic issues? What is the future direction of transport policy? What is the most cost effective way of getting our economy moving and regenerating the north and midlands? Are there monetised costs and benefits of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty or listed buildings? Is this the optimum route?

Until we have a better process for reconciling national and local interests the current system will inevitably face accusations of a lack of transparency and game playing, and the Coalition government commitment to ‘localism’ will sound very hollow to many local people. They will believe that Greg Clark was right, people are being ‘done to’.

Alan Goodrum is chief executive of Chiltern DC and Cllr Martin Tett is leader of Buckinghamshire CC