Moving over from the Scottish Independence debate arguably the largest infrastructure project since the railways were electrified, HS2 remains a contentious issue. Is it really necessary? Will it actually work to benefit the nation? Is it just an ego trip and a palm greasing exercise for already unctuous politicians and civil servants? Given the impending energy crisis, the state of our roads, and improvements in telecoms (e.g. conferencing etc) is this really how best to spend the public purse via a quasi private enterprise? A link to the official HS2 website is below http://www.hs2.org.uk/ This is a link to an independent report http://www.bluespacethinking.com/subject/hs2 The opposition site can be found below. http://stophs2.org/ In the interest of disclosure I live pretty close to the route. And yes I am vehemently opposed to this project but this it isn't a case of NIMBY. I just do not see any justification for this project in terms of route, cost, station location, projected usage, environmental impact, future proofing, overall benefit to the country and the impending necessity to spend the public purse elsewhere (e.g. energy supply). Over to you.
Difiicult for me to say as haven't read much about it. However, anything that may help the north/south divide economically would be good for England.
Not entirely sure how knocking off 10-15 minutes off a journey time to Birmingham (to start) really helps the so called north south divide... that's the propaganda claim that it will. Especially when Chiltern have just done that and there is opportunity for the existing line from Euston to do the same.
If I still lived in Northants I would have had the line coming through my village about 300 metres from my house, so I do know a fair bit about it. Now I live about 80 kms away from the extension that is being built to the TGV line that will link the north of the country to the south west. If it gets traffic off the roads it has to be a good thing. If it gives better access to European markets it is a good thing. Maybe it will help move some of the prosperity of the south of England further north. There are good arguments for and against on that one. Having worked on the railways very many years ago, I knew then and see little change since that infrastructure spending on the system consistently lagged behind others countries. How it is financed doesn't worry me. The autoroutes are privately built and maintained, but of course you have to pay to use them. You have a choice of paying up, or using the more out dated Routes Nationale. The existing lines are almost full, so something has to be done. People will suffer the effects. I dread to think what some of the lanes will be like with the construction work in Northants, farms will be cut in half both there and here. Talking a couple of weeks ago to a lady who lives right alongside the new TGV line she was not bothered as screening had been erected to baffle the noise and her village had been given a total face lift by the contractor who is doing the work. She was against it during the consultation stage, but now actually welcomed it.
Vive la difference! I think given the size of France they ought to have a the TVG. We have a poorly managed railway system for the most part. Improve that first, then we'll see how necessary HS2 is. Ironic that given the clamour for independence we're still likely to be stuck with an expensive white elephant of a railway too big, too expensive and strategically ill thought out for this country.
No, no, no and no again. It's not about the time saved - the whole HS2 project is about the capacity of the existing West and East Coast Main Lines from London to the North (not just Birmingham) and ultimately Scotland to service projected increases in the passengers travelling - based on the increases in the last 20 years. Exactly as ofh states above. I'll admit it is sometimes difficult to argue the case against a "do nothing option" - but if nothing is done then these lines will run out of capacity by 2030. Even if it was logistically possible to increase capacity on the current lines it would be far more expensive to do this (add a couple of extra lines - on which side?) than to build a brand-new line engineered for high speed. This is the real case for HS2 - not speed but capacity.
Why do you think that the current railway system is "poorly managed"? It has one of the highest rates of customer satisfaction in Europe and is generally adjudged to be one of the most efficient railways in the world by those who should know. Considering the chronic lack of investment in infrastructure over the last 50 years, this is amazing. Improve the existing railway first? Network Rail are planning to spend £18bn between 2015 and 2020 having spent almost that amount in the last 5 years on electrification, opening new lines and modernising stations. Why do you consider HS2 to be "too big"? It will take up far less space than even a 4-lane motorway, be far less noisy and have much less of an impact on the environment than any equivalent road. As I have already stated, the do nothing option will prove far more expensive in the mid to long term than a well engineered line freeing capacity off the West & East Coast main lines for more fast commuter trains. Try asking the folks in Milton Keynes whether they would like to double the capacity of their services into Euston or those in Peterborough into Kings Cross. So a new efficient railway linking London, Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle is "strategically ill thought out"? Why is every other economically advanced country in the world building or planning to build high-speed lines - even the USA! Please do not fall into the trap of believing the media reports, which are so biased and inaccurate it beggars belief.
Spot on. In any case we should put al the transport budget towards the new airport - I think Buckinghamshire would b a good location for it
I'm really confused about which side of this argument to take. I'm a member of BBOWT (Bucks, Berks & Oxon naturalist trust) and from their point of view the line is a disaster, through the Chilterns and the Vale of Aylebury. However, I can see the worth of the project, given that the West Coast mainline has no more capacity. That line, incidentally, passes straight through my village. It is in a cutting, and our station was closed in 1964, so we barely notice it. It has been there for 150 years and is part of the landscape. But as a 150 year old piece of engineering I would think the latest and much overdue tranche of updating over the past 10-15 yrs has taken it as far as it can go. It is a great shame that the Great Central Railway was taken out by Beeching. It was constructed for many of the same reasons as HS2, and Beeching deemed it as unnecessary duplication of the West Coast line. I believe in the environmental worth of railways, which should take a lot of freight off the roads, but I struggle to balance that against the environmental impact of HS2. I remain firmly on the fence and deeply confused.
That one was proposed at Wing the 60's , Dan. It was successfully kicked into touch by a local resistance campaign!
I just do not believe the business case and for sure the project will overrun it's plan and budget. So any relief to the East Coast line when HS2 links across to Leeds, Sheffield will be years and years away. - it's more likely that the extensions will be canned as the budget runs out. So all we are left with is a railway that will cut some minutes off of a journey to the NW for those that can afford it. The investment would be better made to improve the current infrastructure to increase capacity - better signalling, better stations, modern trains would all help increase capacity. On my local line, despite improvements to the busy stations to allow them to accept trains with 12 carriages, during peak hours FCC still run 8!carriage trains. Last week I went up to London mid afternoon and a 12 carriage train pulled up - total waste.
