clint van damme
Well-Known Member
We all know that's not happening.
Were 14 years in and it’s due to be finished in 6-10 years
We all know that's not happening.
It should if the intention was ever to build a HS2 to the north. But it was intended to connect BHX to London and increase London's air passenger capacity. Though if it doesn't go into central London it's farce. When they proposed it and it didn't connect up to St Pancras and access to European HSR, then I wondered what the point was.
As for infrastructure spending in general, for me it should be used as a regeneration tool. As it is all the big infrastructure goes to the already successful places and just results in increases migration from deprived areas and needing money to sort of the increasing social problems in those areas with the double whammy of higher property and living costs in the areas that people move to so even those that try to get out get caught in the trap.
I'm amazed at how little joined-up thinking goes on in the corridors of power. Though I guess the 'joined-up' in that sentence may be redundant.
Big infra can only be justified where there’s people to use it. That’s why no connection to HS1, as few people travel from Manchester to Paris compared to Manchester to London. But taking intercity trains off onto their own lines means more local services. And the easier it is for people to move around quickly and cheaply the less they have to move to find gainful employment or economic opportunities.
This “local vs London” nonsense is just that. The whole anti HS2 campaign has such parallels with Brexit. Just misinformation and playing to peoples basest instincts.
I do find the idea that "nobody uses something (that doesn't exist)" as justification for not doing something holds these decisions back. These sorts of infrastructure should be supporting behaviour change, why shouldn't you take a high speed train from Manchester to Paris rather than fly there? If the government is at all serious about reducing emissions it's a complete no-brainer.
Exactly. The canals, railways and motorways had a massive impact on places which thrived and which didn't. You can take that back to the Romans and medieval periods. Where they built forts, roads and castles people moved there.I do find the idea that "nobody uses something (that doesn't exist)" as justification for not doing something holds these decisions back. These sorts of infrastructure should be supporting behaviour change, why shouldn't you take a high speed train from Manchester to Paris rather than fly there? If the government is at all serious about reducing emissions it's a complete no-brainer.
Exactly. The canals, railways and motorways had a massive impact on places which thrived and which didn't. You can take that back to the Romans and medieval periods. Where they built forts, roads and castles people moved there.
Infrastructure could be a massive nudge. You install something like a high speed broadband connection in a city/area that is in decline and it would help bring that area out of that decline, both with the jobs created from installation and afterwards, which also they stops migration to already crowded cities and the huge problems of rents due to supply and demand. Same could be done with declining seaside resorts harnessed with green energy projects like tidal and wind.
Like you I'd love to be able to just do everything everywhere.If shit were free (Politically) build it everywhere. I’d give every town above 100k a tram and build undergrounds in places like Birmingham and Manchester. Get a high speed east west line from Norwich through Cambridge, MK, Oxford, Bristol, Cardiff, Plymouth.
But right now we can’t even get one simple line between the two biggest cities in the country.
Like you I'd love to be able to just do everything everywhere.
But as we can't for me it makes far more sense to concentrate on areas that are in decline and suffering than further entrenching the divide by giving all the shiny new stuff to places that are already successful. Otherwise you're effectively working on Thatcherite and trickle-down style ideas.
I knew you'd be all over that
Have they changed methodology since 2019? They were the most accurate pollster then.Apparently they exclude don’t knows and reweight. Which is just weird.
Let’s Make Gritain Brow Again
She’s absolutely convinced she’s correctTruss either has no shame, awareness or is just stupid - or quite possibly all three.
If somebody pays you enough money you can be convinced of anything I'm sureShe’s absolutely convinced she’s correct
It's not a "simple" line, it's a massively, vastly expensive one, built on a huge pretence.
You've not engaged with a single point made in a thoroughly well researched article, and yet you'd dismiss it as "anti-growth" guff. That's worthy of GB News mate, a dismissal based on a prejudice without the effort to produce any evidence.
I'm sorry but it's ridiculous. The fact is that the benefits were always massively over stated, and that was before the project even started to have vast cost and delivery over-runs. Are you seriously saying that with 100bn to spend, the best investment for the entire country was one ultra-fast line.
If we're going to spend vast sums of money on infrastructure, which I like the idea of, then let's do the assessments honestly and properly, and work out where in the country needs it most. Otherwise you end up with huge, expensive projects, focussed in the wrong areas. QED.
Mate there’s nothing to dismiss. It’s guff about “oh we shouldn’t travel anyway”.
Monbiot and the like is the exact reason it’s so expensive. It’s a fucking train line, they’ve been being built with little impact on the environment (especially compared to the alternatives) for a century. The environmental case against it is a joke.
HS2 is literally everything you’re asking for in an infra project and you’re still against it. Which is exactly the problem. Nothing is ever perfect enough for people.
Anti-HS2 and Brexit: both a bunch of posh Tories making poor far left and environmentalist and cost arguments to the working class points to dupe people into voting in rich people’s interests.
It's literally not everything I'm asking for. I want the money to be spent, but intelligently.
The case does not stand up for HS2, never did. And that's me speaking as one of the few people in Coventry who live near enough to the thing to benefit (very slightly). As opposed to anyone from the other side of the city who will suffer from *reduced* services from Cov to Euston (a "benefit" not often mentioned).
100bn to move people in and out of London a bit more quickly. Except from places that aren't on the line.
Come off it. You couldn't find anything better to spend £100bn on, in the entire country? Fuck me that's a failure of imagination!
If you think HS2 isn't already making some people very rich, you've not been paying attention.
And why are you banging on about Brexit, it's completely unrelated unless there was a referendum on HS2?
Politically HS2 is neutral to me, it's simply a matter of the vast cost on a huge white elephant.
HS2 is literally everything you’re asking for in an infra project and you’re still against it. Which is exactly the problem. Nothing is ever perfect enough for people
Increasingly over budget, increasingly scaled back?!
Because people keep moaning about it! We pay literally ten times what other countries do for the pleasure of having us tunnelled and cut and dodging round rich peoples houses and farms and old woods or whatever. If you don’t like the cost then stop with all the expensive shite and just build the damn thing. A huge chunk of the increase is simply inflation cos we’ve fucked about for so long cos everyone wants it to be perfect for them.
It was always going to be this way, nearly every thing we try ends up the same!
Your 'just build the damn thing'sentiment I agree with but that was never going to happen.
The tunnelling thing doesn’t really run true. Japan has just built a new line for the bullet train. Most of which is tunnelled and the cost per mile is £51M per mile which is just less than a third of what it’s costing in the UK to build HS2. One thing that doesn’t get talked about is mismanagement and clientism.Because people keep moaning about it! We pay literally ten times what other countries do for the pleasure of having us tunnelled and cut and dodging round rich peoples houses and farms and old woods or whatever. If you don’t like the cost then stop with all the expensive shite and just build the damn thing. A huge chunk of the increase is simply inflation cos we’ve fucked about for so long cos everyone wants it to be perfect for them.
Because people keep moaning about it! We pay literally ten times what other countries do for the pleasure of having us tunnelled and cut and dodging round rich peoples houses and farms and old woods or whatever. If you don’t like the cost then stop with all the expensive shite and just build the damn thing. A huge chunk of the increase is simply inflation cos we’ve fucked about for so long cos everyone wants it to be perfect for them.
The tunnelling thing doesn’t really run true. Japan has just built a new line for the bullet train. Most of which is tunnelled and the cost per mile is £51M per mile which is just less than a third of what it’s costing in the UK to build HS2. One thing that doesn’t get talked about is mismanagement and clientism.
It may be one reason but it isn’t the reason. Take just one of the main contractors Skanska for instance. Its turnover has grown by 25% due to HS2, which is fine, it’s a major infrastructure project, it would be naive to not expect that. But why has their profit increased by 60% in the same period? What accountability is there between the government, what they pay to skanska and how that equates to value for money for the taxpayers?It’s true that’s why costs significantly increased though. Amount of tunnelling has doubled since original budget, not to mention extra cutting etc
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