CHESHIRE East Council’s leader remains confident of creating a HS2 education facility to Crewe, after the Government announced two specialist engineering colleges would sited in the Midlands and Yorkshire.

Councillor Michael Jones said rail engineering was ‘embedded in the DNA’ of Crewe and that a HS2 education facility in the town was still a possibility.

“We were always aware that before any announcement on HS2 Crewe, an announcement on the Rail College would be made and that it would be going to Birmingham,” he said.

“We support that and we fully support the proposal for HS2 at Crewe.

“We understand the decision to locate the key college hubs in Birmingham and Doncaster and we anticipate further announcements on the local hubs in the future.

“Rail engineering and skills are embedded in the DNA of the people of Crewe and as a Council we will do all we can to promote our interest in playing a part in the hub and spoke model that this national college is expected to become.

“We remain optimistic on a HS2 decision soon; that we will be able to enter into discussions so that our talented young people may have an opportunity to contribute to this exciting project.

“HS2 is massive. We are talking to universities about specialist areas of learning, based at Crewe and we are working along with Manchester Metropolitan University to expand their presence in Crewe, which has to be great news for the town.

“The Council is working with its partners to establish not only academic but real time engineering solutions for UK plc and you will hear a lot more about this in the future.

“As always Crewe is on the up with much more to come.”