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Birmingham City Football Club’s new American owner has warned Rishi Sunak he would damage trust in the UK if he halted the HS2 high-speed rail project. Birmingham City Football Club is a minority stake in NFL superstar Tom Brady.
The club’s chairman, Tom Wagner, wrote to the Prime Minister warning that shortening HS2 would damage Birmingham’s economy and shake investor confidence in the government’s commitments.
“There is an expectation that the government will deliver on its publicly announced long-term plans,” Wagner said in a letter seen by the Financial Times.
“Any deviation could lead to a loss of investor trust, which would have considerable negative consequences for the UK. The ambitious HS2 project falls into this category.”
Wagner joined business and political criticism after government officials confirmed Sunak was considering scrapping the HS2 route from Birmingham to Manchester and terminating the southern section of the London suburb of Old Oak Common.
Wagner said the planned HS2 route to Birmingham was a key factor in the decision of US hedge fund Knighthead Capital Management, of which he is a managing member, to invest in the football club.
He believes a fast rail link to Birmingham is an important part of his plan to transform second-tier football clubs into a stronger force in the game. Brady’s involvement drew widespread global attention.
Earlier this year, the hedge fund took a 46% stake in Birmingham City and fully purchased its 29,000-seat stadium, taking control of the club’s day-to-day operations.
Brady, who retired this year, is the most successful quarterback in NFL history. He holds a minority stake in the club and chairs its advisory board.
A Downing Street spokesman did not deny on Monday that Sunak was close to canceling the Birmingham-Manchester stage of HS2 after chancellor Jeremy Hunt said the project’s costs were “completely out of control”.
The Prime Minister is expected to reallocate HS2 spending to a range of other transport improvements, including better bus services, light rail and tram schemes, and the Northern Powerhouse Railway, an improved east-west scheme from Manchester to Leeds.
Meanwhile, Sunak is under increasing pressure to make concessions, with politicians including former chancellor George Osborne and former deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine saying shortening the project would ” Becoming an international symbol of our decline.”
Business leaders have also taken action. Chris Fletcher, policy director at Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, said: “The north has been promised land again but all we seem to be getting is scorched earth.”
A source close to Birmingham Airport management said: “Axing Manchester Airport is very short-sighted. In 50 or 60 years time people won’t remember the overspending, they will remember the opportunities this government has provided for them and future generations. Do everything.”
Melanie Smith, chief executive of NEC Group, the events business that owns the National Exhibition Center in Birmingham, said: “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to drive economic growth and prosperity for the country and we need to maximize its potential.”
Defense Secretary Grant Shapps on Sunday defended plans to change the “sequence of spending”, fueling speculation that the northern leg of the project could be delayed rather than cancelled.
But one official said: “The decision taken by the Prime Minister is a virtue and shows that this is not just another lie.”
The looming decision is awkward given that Sunak will chair the Conservative Party conference in Manchester this weekend. Downing Street declined to say whether he would travel by train to the event.
Sunak told broadcasters in an interview on Monday that he remained “committed to the upgrade” despite speculation over Britain’s biggest single upgrade programme.
“Transport infrastructure is a key part of this, but it’s not just the big rail projects, it’s local projects, improving local bus services, fixing potholes, all of which will change people’s daily lives,” he said.
An announcement on the fate of HS2 won’t be made until the autumn, but officials and ministers have begun fine-tuning the details in the past two weeks since a long-lens photographer discovered a civil servant was in possession of a secret HS2 clipping file.