Honestly, looking at the numbers, if the aim was to increase commuting range to London, even Birmingham was beyond what I’d be willing to tolerate, even with HS2.
London to Birmingham: It’s expected this journey will take 52 minutes instead of 81 minutes (one hour, 21 minutes).
London to Manchester: It’ll take just over an hour (63 minutes to be exact) to get from London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly if all goes to plan with HS2. Right now, it takes 144 minutes (two hours, 24 minutes).
So it’s about an hour to either, and that’s just one-way and only the train portion of the commute; there’s going to be more travel at each end.
Honestly, looking at the numbers, if the aim was to increase commuting range to London, even Birmingham was beyond what I’d be willing to tolerate, even with HS2.
https://metro.co.uk/2021/11/19/hs2-travel-times-route-speed-and-time-you-could-save-on-your-commute-15631586/
So it’s about an hour to either, and that’s just one-way and only the train portion of the commute; there’s going to be more travel at each end.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/transport-statistics-great-britain-2021/transport-statistics-great-britain-2021
So just the train portion of the commute would be something like double the average British total commute length.
That’s a considerable chunk of one’s day spent commuting.