Northern Powerhouse campaigners hit back at proposals to axe HS2

Proposals to scrap the HS2 high speed rail to pay for a range of smaller improvements have been slammed as "an embarrassment".

The Taxpayers' Alliance published 28 projects which they say could be funded if HS2 was scrapped.

Their ideas included dramatic improvements to the A1 all the way from Durham to Edinburgh, turning the road into a dual carriageway, and possibly a fully-fledged motorway, along the whole 140-mile stretch.

But the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, the think-tank founded by former Chancellor George Osborne to promote the North, said the region needed HS2 as well as smaller schemes.

Henri Murison, director of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership said: "Northern business and civic leaders all agree we need HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail and more investment in key road and mass transit schemes for city regions.

"Why should hard pressed taxpayers in the North, who pay double the amount of road tax and fuel duty than those living in London, be forced to make a choice between them after decades of underinvestment here?