A survey of members by the Institute of Directors (IoD) shows businesses are unconvinced by the economic case for HS2, prompting the organisation's director general Simon Walker to describe the Government's flagship[ transport project as a "grand folly".
The government maintains that HS2 will generate billions in economic benefits once the £42bn line linkingLondon to Birmingham, with branches to Manchester and Leeds via Sheffield, is complete.
The IoD's survey of members showed that just 27% felt the project represented good value for money. Some 70% said the scheme would have no impact on the productivity of their business. Fewer than half (41%) rated HS2 as important to their business - that is down from 54% in a similar survey conducted in August 2011.
"Businesses up and down the country know value for money when they see it, and our research shows that they don't see it in the government's case for HS2," said Mr Walker.
"Overall there appears to be little enthusiasm amongst IoD members, not even in the regions where the benefits are supposed to be strongest.
"We agree with the need for key infrastructure spending, but the business case for HS2 simply is not there."
He urged ministers to look at investing in a large number of smaller schemes rather than spend all the money on "one grand folly".
He added that the cost-benefit analysis was conducted before laptops and tablet computers became commonplace, and as a result suggested time spent on trains was wasted. "The fact is more than half our members say they spend all of their time on trains working," Mr Walker told the BBC's Today programme. "For many of them it's as productive as the time they spend in the office."
HS2 has divided opinion, even among the business community. The British Chambers of Commerce, another business lobby group, said it remained supportive of the project. The CBI has also voiced lukewarm support. Director general John Cridland said it supported HS2 "in principle" but that "it must be demonstrably clear that the benefits outweigh the costs".
A DfT spokesman said the HS2 Growth Taskforce would "work with city and business leaders to ensure we are capitalising on every opportunity to help regeneration, job creation, investment opportunities and in building a skilled UK economy".
Without HS2, he said, "our existing rail network will be full by the mid-2020s at a cost to passengers and businesses up and down country".
'Building monuments'
The project has the backing of the major political parties, but is opposed by many backbench MPs.
Alison Munro, the chief executive of HS2 Ltd, the company charged with delivering the high-speed network, said HS2 was the only way to bring about a "transformational change".
"While smaller schemes may have higher benefit cost ratios, by their very nature they only make small improvements to capacity and often just move the bottleneck elsewhere on the network," she said. "There is no other alternative that delivers the benefits of HS2."
