High Speed Rail - What about the local links ?

There's a fair bit of talk in a number of the papers at the moment around the Governments current consultation around a high speed rail line between London and the north.

In addition to the bits in the papers, a number of council's in Greater Manchester have also passed or are in the process of considering passing motions supporting the £32billon plans, which have the potential to boost the North West's economy by £1bn a year and create 10,000 jobs in the north.

The proposals also have the potential to cut journey times to London to 80 minutes along with adding extra capacity to the rail network overall.

Now whilst I generally support the principal of improving rail journey times and links to the South and believe that the potential benefits these links could bring are worth it, even if the scheme receives unanimous support the first phase of the network to Birmingham wouldn't open until 2026, with Manchester being a few years later in 2032, and I'm concerned that this one scheme would suck up all all available funding leaving very little to improve local connections such as making a reality of proposals like Gamesley station, and a whole host of other proposals to improve rail links across the High Peak.