HOPES were yesterday raised that the North East can reap huge benefits from a new high-speed rail link.

Transport Secretary Justine Greening gave the go-ahead for the HS2 high-speed rail scheme, saying the £32.7bn project would benefit the whole country – although critics branded it a “white elephant”.

The London-Birmingham section will be built first by 2026 before being extended to Manchester and Leeds to form a Y-shaped network by 2033. There is no firm commitment to go further north, although Ms Greening told The Journal that countries always wanted to expand high-speed rail networks once they started them.

And there will not be any direct trains to the North East, using the HS2 route, until the second phase is completed.

But Japanese train builder Hitachi yesterday confirmed it would bid to build the trains that will run on the HS2 line – with the hope to do that at its County Durham plant.

The facility is already set to create hundreds of direct jobs and thousands more in the supply chain after Hitachi won a separate £4.5bn Government contract to build a fleet of new inter-city trains.

The HS2 scheme will see 400 metre-long trains capable of holding 1,100 passengers, whisking them on a 140-mile route from London to Birmingham in just 45 minutes.

A Hitachi spokeswoman said: “We hope that by that time we will be firmly rooted in the UK rail industry with our manufacturing plant in Newton Aycliffe.

“And of course for such an interesting and prestigious project we would be very, very keen to see if we could get involved and bid for the trains.”

Sedgefield MP Phil Wilson, whose constituency will be home to the Hitachi plant, said that showed the company’s commitment to the region and would boost jobs having raised the issue with the Transport Secretary in the Commons.