Metro Chairman Cllr James Lewis has welcomed the pledge made by Transport Secretary Philip Hammond to the BBC's Look North that high-speed rail links to Leeds and Manchester will be built at the same time.

Mr Hammond told Look North correspondent Alan Whitehouse that once the high-speed line had reached Birmingham, 'we will then build out the Manchester and the Leeds branches simultaneously'.

"It's great news to hear this pledge from Philip Hammond, because fears had been expressed that the western line to Manchester might be built before the eastern one," said Cllr Lewis.

"Having gained the support of the Transport Secretary, we now need local businesses and individuals to go to the Yorkshire Needs High-Speed Rail website and show their support for High-Speed 2 and the £2bn+ transformation it will bring to our region before the Department for Transport's consultation closes this Friday," warned Cllr Lewis.

"Because if the well-organised opponents of high-speed prevent it reaching Birmingham, we're never going to feel the benefits in West Yorkshire and the Leeds City Region."

As well as delivering economic benefits, High-Speed Rail would also bring much-needed extra capacity for the North's congested rail networks. The transfer of a significant number of the journeys currently made on the East Coast Main Line to the high-speed route would free up the space in the timetable and on track for more, fast, frequent commuter services, local trains and freight.

"Now that we have the Secretary of State's assurance that both legs will be built at the same time, we'd like to see the plans for the whole network brought forward so that the benefits can be felt as quickly as possible," added Cllr Lewis.

Research by the Eastern Network Partnership, which brings together the Leeds, Sheffield, Tyne & Wear, Tees Valley, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire regions showed that the benefit : cost ratio for the eastern arm of the high-speed network is 5.6.