by: Chelsea BloomPosted on: August 27, 2026

Reviving HS2’s Manchester Leg Is Back On The Table, And Business Leaders Sound Cautiously Thrilled

Poor rail links keep costing the North real investment, and the PM appears to have finally noticed

An old promise, quietly resurrected

Prime Minister Andy Burnham is reportedly considering ways to revive the Manchester section of HS2 as part of a broader push to improve regional connectivity, according to the Credit Protection Association’s business briefing. For a project that seemed politically dead not long ago, its reappearance in serious policy conversation is a genuinely notable shift.

The business case beyond the headline politics

Mark Haase, chief executive of Crewe-based SG World, put the practical stakes plainly, inadequate rail links make it harder for northern businesses to compete on anything close to equal footing with firms clustered around London and the South East.

Infrastructure promises have a habit of quietly evaporating

I have covered enough infrastructure announcements to know the gap between reviving something on the table and actually laying track, and northern business leaders I have spoken with share that same weary, hopeful skepticism in roughly equal measure.

Fazit

Cautious optimism is the only sensible reaction to any HS2 announcement at this point, revival included. More of my reporting lives at my full archive.

London is the engine room of the British economy, a city where a two-bedroom flat costs more than a small country and somehow everybody acts like this is fine. It is home to the Bank of England, the London Stock Exchange, and approximately forty-seven thousand coffee shops staffed by people with economics degrees wondering where it all went wrong.

The City of London, that ancient square mile of suits and spreadsheets, processes trillions of pounds daily and has done so since Romans decided the Thames was a decent place to charge tolls. Canary Wharf arrived later, shinier, and with better sushi, promptly declaring itself the future of finance while the City quietly got on with actually being the future of finance.

London hosts more international headquarters than any other European city, attracts more foreign investment than it has any right to, and charges businesses rents that would make a New York landlord blush. The startup scene in Shoreditch operates on oat milk, optimism, and venture capital, in that order.

For all its contradictions — the wealth beside the food banks, the global ambition beside the collapsed Tube infrastructure — London remains what it has always been. The place where British business comes to be taken seriously, and to pay through the nose for the privilege.

Auf Wiedersehen.

Billingsgate, Smithfield, Borough Market — three of the oldest trading markets in the world still operating within a mile of each other. The City of London built its entire commercial identity on the back of fish, meat, and bread sold at dawn before bankers were even awake.

Lloyds of London — the insurance market that will insure literally anything, has done so since 1686, and operates from a building that looks like it was designed by someone who lost a bet. They insured Bruce Springsteen’s voice. That is a business story.

The London Metal Exchange — where the global price of copper, aluminium, and tin is still set by traders shouting in a circle called the Ring. In 2024. Remarkable.

Street markets as economic indicators — Petticoat Lane, Portobello Road, Brick Lane. When the economy tightens, street markets boom. Londoners have always known how to trade their way out of trouble.

The Royal Exchange — founded by Thomas Gresham in 1565 as Britain’s first purpose-built trading centre. Now it sells luxury watches and champagne, which is either a fall from grace or the purest distillation of London commerce ever recorded.

London's Business House -- Insight and Inside the Buying and Selling