Business leaders from across the North West believe that the current High Speed 2 rail plans should be extended to reach Glasgow, serving the Cumbrian community.

The North West Business Leadership Team (NWBLT) has presented its Transport Update Report to Patrick McLoughlin MP, the secretary of state for Transport, last week and spoke to in-Cumbria/inTheBay about the potential for more transport infrastructure in the region.

Geoffrey Piper, chief executive of NWBLT, believes that extending the High Speed network to Scotland would have a significant impact on the region with key stops in Cumbria and North Lancashire.

“As part of our region, we do believe that there’s value in bringing HS2 not just to Manchester, but as far as Glasgow.

“We’d like to see the route that can support HS2 being extended and the plan being put forward as part of phases two and three of the high speed network plans.

“It would be essential that these services to Glasgow make appropriate stops at places such as Preston, Lancaster and Oxenholme to serve the Cumbrian and North Lancashire communities.

Mr Piper also suggested that there are a number of improvements that can be made to the rail infrastructure of the region such as increasing the capacity of trains running on the network and ensuring that the road network is maintained.

He said: “It’s very important to us as an organisation and our members that we understand what the Northern Powerhouse is and what it consists of, we’d like it to represent the whole North and the businesses here.

“A big thing on the lines in the North West that we want to see improved is capacity, these trains can become pretty tight even in the North West at peak times.”

“There are a lot of important mentions in the report about the A66 and A69, which go across the North of England and are essential to keeping the flow of traffic moving.”