Sussex roads including A259 to receive part of axed HS2 funding

In a speech in Manchester for the Conservative Party conference yesterday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that the Birmingham to Manchester leg of the high-speed rail line would be scrapped due to spiralling costs.

Instead, more than £36 billion that would have been spent on extending the line will be invested in a new programme of transport improvements, dubbed “Network North”.

While most of the investment will be concentrated in the north of England, the South East will be granted £290 million in funding to “ensure the delivery” of 14 road schemes in the region.

In Sussex, most of the extra funding will go towards projects along the A259, including sections between Bognor and Littlehampton, along King's Road in Brighton and the South Coast Road Corridor linking Seaford, Newhaven and Peacehaven to Brighton.

The A22 corridor between Hailsham and Stone Cross will also see further government funding for improvements.

A spokesman for Brighton and Hove City Council said: "We are aware of the government’s announcement and await full details of how the funding scheme will work, and what we will be able to spend the money on."

The South East will also have access to a £2.8 billion road resurfacing fund to combat potholes causing misery for road users, with another £1 billion fund set to be launched for new road schemes.

Rishi Sunak addressing the Conservative Party conference yesterday (Image: Press Association)

In his address to the Conservative Party conference, Prime Minister Sunak said: “HS2 is the ultimate example of the old consensus. The result is a project whose costs have more than doubled, which has been repeatedly delayed and for which the economic case has massively weakened with the changes to business travel post covid.

“I am ending this long-running saga. I am cancelling the rest of the HS2 project - and in its place, we will reinvest every single penny - £36 billion - in hundreds of new transport projects in the North and the Midlands and across the country.

“Every region outside of London will receive the same or more government investment than they would have done under HS2 with quicker results.

“No government has ever developed a more ambitious scheme for northern transport than our new Network North.”

The decision to scrap the Manchester leg of HS2 has been criticised by former Conservative Prime Ministers David Cameron and Boris Johnson.

Mr Cameron said the decision would fuel the view that Britain cannot act for the long term and is “heading in the wrong direction”.

However, the Prime Minister refused to apologise and said that the new Network North project would “benefit far more people in far more places and far quicker”.

He said: “Every penny that would have been spent on this project, £36 billion, is going to be reinvested in every form of transportation, not just heavy rail - and in every part of our country.”