Labour favourite for London Mayor seeks review of HS2 as nominations announced

Jowell is the favourite to face likely Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith, pictured

Jowell is the favourite to face likely Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith, pictured

Tessa Jowell, the former Labour cabinet member who is the favourite to become the party's candidate for the Mayor of London, today urges a review of the HS2 project. 

Jowell said on the Andrew Marr Show this morning that whilst she was "broadly in favour of the infrastructure that the country needs," she was "concerned about the highly disruptive effect of HS2 as presently planned on central London at Euston". She wants to see what could be done to take advantage of the meeting of Crossrail and HS2 at Old Oak Common "to reduce the disruption on central London".

The former Olympics minister has, in contrast to both the current London Mayor and to the favourite for the Conservative nomination, Zac Goldsmith, supported expanding Heathrow. She says today that the Prime Minister should follow the recommendations of the Davies Commission.

It was announced Friday that there will be five other names on the ballot paper: former transport minister Sadiq Khan, transport journalist Christian Wolmar, and London MPs David Lammy, Diane Abbott and Gareth Thomas. Wolmar says the capital is "too geared towards cars," and would freeze fares for a year whilst reviewing them; Jowell, Khan and Abbott would also freeze fares; Thomas said he was the only candidate who would cut tube, train and bus fares.

Former shadow transport secretary Mary Creagh yesterday withdrew from the race to be Labour leader, with an attack on the former leader Ed Miliband for seeking a fight with bus companies rather than working with them on a new franchising system.