HS2

Oh I take your point MayBee, I was possibly looking at it from the point of view of levelling up with the south given the dissatisfaction perspective of northern rail commuters. .

I fully sympathize with those in the north of England who, yet again have seen their taxes spent on projects (or failed projects) which have brought no benefit to them, while their tax is spent 'down south'. Imagine then the frustration of those of us in Scotland whose taxes also contribute to all the London and SE Centric developments, while any development in Scotland must be funded from the SG finances.
PS - I have not visited London since passing through for flights to Italy - for my honeymoon in Italy 1966

I wish they'd stop all these projects in London.

Our railways and roads seem to be in a state of perpetual chaos.

And, the rail doesn't seem to improve much anyway - still expensive and unreliable.

The money still needed for HS2 could be spent on better things.🙄

What would those better things be? More roads? More lorries??

westendgirl

I listened to some of the debate and found that not only was the minister useless he was also very rude.

Yes absolutely!

We have a useless speaker who appears unable to ensure good manners are on display and truth is told at the despatch box.

MayBee70

What would those better things be? More roads? More lorries??

No, repairing schools, the NHS, Social Care.. .that sort of thing. 🙂

Saw this yesterday!

Another well-planned vanity project for the glory of the Buffoon, second only to Truss imho as the worst PM in modern times.

To be fair I think it was conceived by the Labour Party? ( I could be wrong). I’m beginning to think it’s just another dead cat strategy prior to the party conferences and that is is just going to go ahead.

I was utterly opposed to HS2 when it was proposed, BUT since it is going ahead and too much work had been done to move back, then I think that HS2 must go on to Manchester at least, sending it just to Birmingham is ludicrous and totally pointless.

It needs also to come into Kings Cross as planned, not just end at Old Oak Common. Houses and communities in the Kings Cross area have already been destroyed, to now just shrug and not build the railway they were destroyed for is outrageous.

It was just another Johnson vanity project. Kill it off and use the money to upgrade our outdated railways. The cost is enormous compared with similar projects in the EU.

Grantanow HS2s development has gone so far that it will be more expensive to unpick it than go on and complete it.

Grantanow

It was just another Johnson vanity project. Kill it off and use the money to upgrade our outdated railways. The cost is enormous compared with similar projects in the EU.

It’s not that easy to upgrade the railways that we have!

MayBee70

To be fair I think it was conceived by the Labour Party? ( I could be wrong). I’m beginning to think it’s just another dead cat strategy prior to the party conferences and that is is just going to go ahead.

The idea was mooted by the LP - that's all. It was Osborne who ran with the project.

It is the north of the country that needs additional rail networks - east to west - and I think it would have been better if the project had started there.

The idea of spending all that money just to save businessmen 20 minutes on their journey was stupid.

The first TGV line in France was opened in 1981. Today the network covers 2700km and reaches 180 towns. More lines are being planned. I remember reading at the time of the first line that the French did not argue about the price to be paid for compulsory purchase of homes affected by the new lines.

Dinahmo I am not sure about the French being happy to have their houses compulsorily purchased for the TGV lines. More, I think, that the French government just ride roughshod over all objections, they do not bother with tunnels but just build their lines up hill and own dale over open country and then build really powerful engines that can cope with the inclines.

France is also a much larger and squarer country than the UK, so there are real advantages in having long very fast railways. I have benfitted from the train that enables me to get from London to Marseilles in about 7 hours, over 600 miles, but except for London to Inverness, we do not have these great distances in the UK and Great Britain gets narrower and less populated, the further north you go, so the potential market is small.

HS2, was a disaster from the start, but it has gone so far now that it has got to be finished - and by finished i mean go to Manchester, but beyond that, the money should be spent on improving the existing infrastructure and improving rolling stock, timetables and stations to make travelling aroud the north of England and into Scotland, smoother, quicker and assle free.

It was a Johnson approved vanity project intended to distract from the lack of investment in UK railways generally. The costs so far are outrageous compared with similar, completed projects in the EU. And what have we likely got? A railway from Acton to Brum.

Heard Mark Harper on the Today programme today!
Glad I wasn't having to interview him as I was left fuming and screaming at the radio!

westendgirl

I listened to some of the debate and found that not only was the minister useless he was also very rude.

It was probably Mark Harper!
He is definitely rude!

People have wanted better links West/East in the North since before I was born.

i heard yesterday that property and land has already been compulsorily purchased along the route between Birmingham and Manchester. How will that be explained to those owners if/when the scheme is cancelled?

Interesting item :France has just launched a new rail pass allowing unlimited travel on TER, intercity services for £49 per month. This is to encourage people to opt for more
sustainable forms of transport.

We need a fully integrated transport system that everybody can afford to us.

I listened to this man yesterday.
This article doesn’t come close to what he went through but listening to him showed what an absolute debacle it was.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12595137/Company-director-59-loses-home-business-livelihood-HS2-northern-leg-scrapped.html

Finally got to speak to my ex about HS2. He said he couldn’t understand why it wasn’t just built parallel to the M1. And that it hadn’t been handled well financially: I think Labour will be conducting an enquiry into this, too, as well as covid contracts. He also said that it is going to have to be built eventually. Has anyone been watching Race Across the World where they talk about using high speed trains across Europe that are cheap to use? Why do we just accept that train travel in the UK is too expensive for most people and unreliable? It doesn’t have to be.

Sunak has decided to sell off the land compulsorily purchased asap in order to prevent any other work going on in future. 38 Degrees has a petition to try to prevent this.

The HS2 company continued to purchase land up to 24 hours before Sunak's announcement of the cancellation.