clint van damme
Well-Known Member
Were 14 years in and it’s due to be finished in 6-10 years
We all know that's not happening.
Do you want to discuss boring politics? (20 Viewers)
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We all know that's not happening.
jimmyhillsfanclub
Well-Known Member
Well, it may do, considering how much of the project is getting cancelled.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
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.
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
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.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
The point is very few people fly Manchester to Paris. I think I saw basically less than a trains worth each day, so a through route wouldn’t be viable. I’m not a trainspotter but I think there’s a disparity with the track gauges used as well.
Manchester (and Glasgow/Leeds/Edinburgh) needs a high speed intercity connection so we can get NPR off the ground and actually improve east/west connections.
Point is, I don’t think complaining about a high speed link between the biggest cities if you want better local connections is the smartest move.
TomRad85
Well-Known Member
My mum has been moaning about HS2 for over a decade I'm sure, the only thoughts I have are...
1. If you're going to do something, even if largely unpopular, at least do it quickly. The amount of time it's taken/ing is embarrassing.
2. Not stopping at Cov by the looks. Bit insulting.
3. They are building a new station at Old Oak Common? That was the first area I lived when I moved to London and its a fucking shithole. Anyone changing there don't bother leaving the station to take in the sights and meet the locals.
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1. If you're going to do something, even if largely unpopular, at least do it quickly. The amount of time it's taken/ing is embarrassing.
2. Not stopping at Cov by the looks. Bit insulting.
3. They are building a new station at Old Oak Common? That was the first area I lived when I moved to London and its a fucking shithole. Anyone changing there don't bother leaving the station to take in the sights and meet the locals.
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Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
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.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
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.
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
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.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Not really. If you can’t get the political will to go Birmingham to London good luck getting your Nuneaton to Bridlington line built.
Also you’re studiously avoiding the point that if you don’t increase capacity where people are using the train you can’t release capacity to serve everywhere else.
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
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fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
Have they changed methodology since 2019? They were the most accurate pollster then.
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stay_up_skyblues
Well-Known Member
Let’s Make Gritain Brow Again
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Let’s Make Gritain Brow Again
Featuring a bunch of people that have been in great positions of state over the last few years when growth has been anaemic.
Sky Blue Pete
Well-Known Member
She’s absolutely convinced she’s correct
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
If somebody pays you enough money you can be convinced of anything I'm sure
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shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Mate there’s nothing to dismiss. It’s guff about “oh we shouldn’t travel anyway”. And I did address the few points he actually made about carbon output.
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.
duffer
Well-Known Member
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!
duffer
Well-Known Member
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.
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
On the railways only, what do you suggest £100bn is spent on if not brand new lines?
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Of course it is. The reason I’m banging on about Brexut is the tactics are the same. A few nutters in Tory shires wanting to protect their privilege (be it avoiding tax or keeping their property prices high) start a load of nonsense co opted by useful idiots on the far left and presented as some war on ordinary people.
Is HS2 expensive? Yes. Is it because it’s HS2? No. It’s because everything is expensive to build in this country because we spend years pandering to people like Monbiot and still don’t produce the green utopia he claims to want. So we get the worst of both worlds. You want it cheaper? Just build the fucking tracks, no trying to hide it all so our beautiful fields aren’t ruined like these horrific hellscapes:
If you’ve got an issue with consultants then streamline the planning process so they aren’t needed and campaign for in house staff for those that are. If you’ve got an issue with the environmental aspect explain why you’re in favour of road traffic over rail and how we are ever going to build anything to satisfy you. If you want local rail then you have to back HS2 because it’s impossible to get local capacity up without it.
Again, like Brexit, a complex large scale project most don’t fully understand but every expert in the area agrees is needed bar a few cranks.
clint van damme
Well-Known Member
Increasingly over budget, increasingly scaled back?!
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
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.
clint van damme
Well-Known Member
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.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
It needs to be a watershed moment though. We can’t build a fucking train line between our two biggest cities. Whether it happens or not now as a country we need to work out how we got here and what we want to do about it. At heart I agree with allot of the conservation arguments. But it’s death by 1000 cuts and we still end up with crap buildings and no infrastructure.
The whole planning thing needs looking at, there has to be a point where you go “no, this is decided by a democratically elected government and has gone through basic checks, it happens” and “sorry but we aren’t preserving the country in aspic so let’s find some standard compromise designs we can build quickly when we need to” not to mention “no, random MP I don’t care if it goes through your constituency we’re not throwing millions of pounds at you”.
It’s a bit extreme but at one end I saw the suggestion to just give people a chance to sell up at a 25% premium but not complain and it would still save billions. There has to be a better balance of public good and individual interest.
skybluetony176
Well-Known Member
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.
Agreed. I’ve read about the extra tunnelling, cutting etc recently. Add to that the original planning docs which ran into 60000 pages….that I guess then needed changing/updating. Add the environmentalist that I’ve heard have lead to 100s of millions (yep, not kidding) of additional costs in policing, delays, security etc. plus the amount of wastage, I know people who’ve worked there who were being well overpaid and then the consultants. No wonder that the costs have snowballed.
It’s true that’s why costs significantly increased though. Amount of tunnelling has doubled since original budget, not to mention extra cutting etc
skybluetony176
Well-Known Member
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?