whether they admit it or not, everything else is being sacrificed so the government can carry on pouring billions and billions into a project
I think that's the fundamental disagreement here. I don't think HS2 is really a factor in other (arguably more important) improvements not going ahead. If the government wanted to do them they could find the money. But as stated this country is very London-centric and anything North of Birmingham finds it hard to get a look-in. That doesn't mean HS2 isn't worth doing.
I don’t think HS2 is really a factor in other (arguably more important) improvements not going ahead.
HS2 is a factor in a lot of stuff actually going ahead!
Northern Powerhouse Rail depends on full completion of HS2 as it hooks into both eastern and western legs. Without HS2, the case for NPR becomes very flaky which then runs the risk of that being cancelled which then means no investment, development and regeneration across a vast swathe of the north of England.
There's development happening or planned in various Midlands and Northern towns and cities based entirely on the promise of HS2 (and to a slightly lesser extent, NPR)
I’m pretty sure most people in Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Hull etc don’t want to work in * London. That’s why they have chosen to live where they live. They don’t want a fast train to London to take once a month or once a week or whatever. They want a * train that takes them to their job in Manchester, Leeds, Hull or Liverpool.
That really.
.
I lived in the southeast for three years (Reading) and was amazed at the public transport there. Having come from rural Lincolnshire it was a massive eye-opener as to just how much public transport some parts of the country have.
Seems mad to be doing the southern bit first when they already have public transport and a lot of places don't have any at all.
Crazy legs - sort out the abomination that is Piccadilly for a start off! Everybody says it’s too expensive but it would be pennies compared to HS2. Transpennine route upgrade. Sort the capacity on the ECML which has now been delayed yet again. The list goes on. And of course, sort our woeful broadband. All of these will make a real difference to far more people than HS2 and in reality, rather than the rarefied atmosphere of KPMG derived business cases, they would have far more economic benefits…
Crazy legs – sort out the abomination that is Piccadilly for a start off! Everybody says it’s too expensive but it would be pennies compared to HS2. Transpennine route upgrade.
I don't disagree (especially because I have stood on the abomination that is Platforms 13/14 at Picc on any number of occasions. TRU is being done (slowly). There were some new bridges finished in Manchester a couple of days ago:
https://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/major-16-day-railway-overhaul-completed-in-manchester-as-part-of-the-transpennine-route-upgrade.
Piccadilly is in a bit of a quandary. Depends a lot on HS2 since it's supposed to have a terminus there. Building Platforms 15/16 now could result in the whole lot being bulldozed again later to build in HS2/NPR. Much as Piccadilly does need sorting (ideally via a small nuclear device to flatten half of Manchester and start over), it needs certainty on HS2 and NPR before sorting the whole lot in one go.
Currently, most transport decisions are made using BCR (Benefit:Cost Ratios). Benefits is based on a whole load of stuff around opening up jobs, connectivity, "the economy", how many more people will be able to do X if Y is built and so on.
The cost is generally fairly fixed - it costs as much to work on a railway in London as it does to work on one in Newcastle (and Network Rail have a history of vastly inflating costs as well...). The benefits however are very heavily skewed towards the south / London. There are more people, more (and better paid) jobs, greater customer base (ie more people living near your potential new station) and so on so the benefits are huge.
Build CrossRail and X million people will use it per day/week/month/year
Build a Newcastle version of CrossRail and it'd cost basically the same give or take a few million. But you'd only have x hundred thousand using it per day/week/month/year so the benefits are lower.
I'm not saying that's right, that's just how it's done (although the Green Book which is used for transport planning and decisions is being re-written to hopefully balance that out a little).
So nothing gets done up north. The area gets more deprived which stymies any further investment so the area gets more deprived...
Good post crazy legs, very helpful. This is one of my frustrations with HS2 - so much seems to depend on this crazy leviathan that it stymies much needed developments. When it is cancelled, as it surely will be at least in part, then years will have been lost when development should have gone ahead to sort these issues out.
There is one benefit to the aborted scheme though - it will have resulted in the clearance of large parts of urban centres which needed redevelopment anyway, and leave developers with a much more attractive blank canvas than would otherwise have been the case…
Time will tell I guess, in the meantime I’ve seen and heard nothing to lessen my opposition…
Agreed – but even if you are pro growth & pro business HS2 was the wrong thing to build.
What would be the right thing to build
I would start up north. Better connections between Northern cities. Better transport within Northern cities. The UK needs a counter balance to London. Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester should have at least the same amount spent on transport infrastructure as London has had. (I'm thinking Crossrails £20 billion)
I live in South Wales & we are still in Pacers. Electrification was cancelled last time I heard.
I'd love to be able to get to Aberystwyth from Cardiff without going to Birmingham.
A big effort to get more freight on rails even if it means running the system at a loss.
Away from rail:
Masses more cycle paths (of course!)
Also I would be moving government departments up North- I'd move the the whole lot tbh. London will be fine without it and there are places that could really do with the extra jobs.
Following speculation over the last few days the FT has just started reporting that the Eastern leg is pretty much dead.
Looks like they’re finally going to confirm the scrapping of both Notthern Powerhouse Rail and the HS2 link to Leeds. If they ever had any intention of either of those things becoming anything more than meaningless slogans, which I seriously doubt
Wonder how long they’ll wait before they scrap the Birmingham to Manchester leg too?
https://twitter.com/angelarayner/status/1459963719962796038?s=21
This levelling up lark is going great, isn’t it?
Following speculation over the last few days the FT has just started reporting that the Eastern leg is pretty much dead.
The three people that believed it would get built must be gutted.
Are they going to give us a few pacer trains as consolation?
The long-delayed Integrated Rail Plan is supposed to be published on Thursday when we'll know for sure but yes, the fact that multiple papers are leaking more or less the same stuff is strongly suggestive that they're in the right ball park.
This from The Guardian yesterday:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/nov/14/government-to-finally-drop-plan-for-hs2-link-to-leeds-reports
The three people that believed it would get built must be gutted.
Not sure that people [b]believed[/b] it would be built but there were certainly a LOT of people [b]hoping[/b] it would be built. Boris was very positive about it all on a visit to the North not long after he was elected. Just goes to show how easily the sack of shit lies as he pleases.
I wish Angela Raynet would get off the fence and tell us how she feels.....
Still the paths we ride past Toton sidings and the bridleways and towpaths on my commute will be safe!
Still the paths we ride past Toton sidings and the bridleways and towpaths on my commute will be safe!
Does this mean they'll still build the bit to East Midlands Parkway, because it seems a waste to spend so much and cause such a large amount of damage for a railway to nowhere, as anyone that's been to parkway will know.
Not sure that people believed it would be built but there were certainly a LOT of people hoping it would be built.
True. I guess now that N Durham is blue, we can expect to see the Consett > Newcastle line get funded instead, which will cut around 10 minutes off that ever so tiresome 40 minute, frequent service to the Metro centre Gateshead. The re-knowned rail interchange that it is.
A project that ironically a lot hope won't go ahead, as it's unnecessary and they will tear up one of the best cycling routes in the NE, maybe even the UK to do it.
because it seems a waste to spend so much and cause such a large amount of damage for a railway to nowhere
You could just apply that to the entire HS2 project.
Any justification for it is now absolutely dead in the water. It’ll never get north of Birmingham and to fund this hideously expensive white elephant it looks like every other rail project, particularly the ones in the north that are desperately needed, will be sacrificed
The title ‘Integrated Rail Plan’ is clearly intended as some kind of joke as all the leaked plans shoe totally piecemeal and randomly disjointed schemes that it’s difficult to see the point of
Any justification for it is now absolutely dead in the water. It’ll never get north of Birmingham and to fund this hideously expensive white elephant it looks like every other rail project, particularly the ones in the north that are desperately needed, will be sacrificed
A lot of the ones in the North absolutely depend on HS2 being built in full.
New / heavily redesigned stations at Leeds and Manchester are desperately needed anyway but the benefits of developing them evaporate if HS2 isn't there. It's a catch-22.
Obviously this should have been done as part of a 30-year phased overhaul of the entire rail network. Electrification on every line, build HS2 in full and that then gives the impetus to be building all the other stuff in the middle like NPR (a lot of which can be done in sync with HS2).
In large part the rail industry only has itself to blame for this I’m afraid - too many piggy snouts in the trough (including some trades unions) have made it utterly impossible for the UK to deliver projects efficiently, on time and at a reasonable cost…
So many massive opportunities wasted - electrification has become a dirty word, even though it is desperately needed, because those tasked with delivering it are incompetent. Elizabeth line massively over budget and behind schedule. GWR electrification anybody? East Coast power upgrades? Yet the industry answer seems to be - ‘let’s increase budgets and give ourselves more time’…, rather than ‘how do we do it better’…
I'd be really interested to know the direct (direct delays, additional fencing, security etc.) and indirect costs (indirect delays, redesign, additional licensing, reviews, reports etc.) that the HS2 project has incurred as result of campaigning against it throughout its lifecycle to date, compared to the total project cost to date and predicted final costs.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not questioning the legitimacy of any action against HS2 or on the other had the business case for HS2 originally.
I’d be really interested to know the direct (direct delays, additional fencing, security etc.) and indirect costs (indirect delays, redesign, additional licensing, reviews, reports etc.) that the HS2 project has incurred as result of campaigning against it throughout its lifecycle to date, compared to the total project cost to date and predicted final costs.
A mate of mine works in the ready-mix industry, he sent me a picture of the temporary access roads for one of the HS2 works, it's even got kerbs on it...
Private industry has no problem whatsoever soaking up any money a Govt wants to spend.
I see the extent of the HS2 works at Euston every day, multiply that all the way to brum its mental
I'm not convinced the entire scheme isnt just a giant keynsian scheme to increase GDP, employment etc
I'm sure the government will sell scrapping Northern lef as allowifof more smaller projects, but we all knew it was going to go this way
Kimbers I think it largely is, and has been for some time. The business case, not the best in the first place, must now be well under water. I think it would have been scrapped a while ago if not for Covid, and boris trying to work out how to lessen the political damage.
The business case, not the best in the first place, must now be well under water.
The business case has been poorly explained throughout, especially concentrating on times - no-one really cares about 15 mins less to Birmingham!
It's also about capacity, future-proofing and expansion elsewhere.
Also, you reach a point in the construction where you can't really stop. Not without incurring very significant legal and compensation costs. You've told the companies involved you'll be giving them 10 years work at the following costs - if you then say "thanks for everything so far, we're cancelling it" they'll be after millions in compensation.
The armies of orange clad workers who’ve spent the last 2 years stood around in fields doing nothing probably don’t help. The slowest construction project I’ve ever seen. A ten year cash cow for the chosen few construction firm owners who’ve already retired off the back of it.
Crazy legs - I know you keep trying with rational explanations, which is appreciated, but the rationale for HS2 seems to change with the wind. The capacity argument has been completely blown out of the water by the pandemic. Even if passenger numbers are recovering (and they still have a huge way to go - what 65-70% now of pre pandemic volumes), the revenue is still massively adrift (not sure how much as the rail industry is, strangely enough, unwilling to say). This reflects the very different nature of rail travel post pandemic - commuting and business is out, leisure is in.
Again though, even if you accept there is some tenuous real case for doing it, the reality is that the execution of it is/ will be so utterly appalling that it will discredit big infra projects for decades - and that is exactly what is happening.
The cancellation point is actually what really gets my goat. It is quite clear that for some time HS2 has been intent on wasting as much money, and doing as much environmental damage as humanly possible in order that it can make exactly this point. It is utterly shocking. It may not be illegal but it really should be.
As for what the money should be spent on - thats easy - digital infrastructure - world class connectivity. Plus of course some more targeted transport interventions too!
Well, this is shit. Travelling south from Yorkshire on the trains keeps getting more difficult and more expensive. The lack of capacity is pushing people onto the roads… and then people make the claim that is proof that extra capacity is not needed. A short sighted decision that will help clog our roads here for generations to come. Levelling down.
I’d be really interested to know the direct (direct delays, additional fencing, security etc.)
No idea overall but the masses of security bods (24hr coverage), plus hire of crane thingy, use of police and partial road closure over the past month or two, just to clear the protesters at Wendover won't have come cheap.
Are they going to give us a few pacer trains as consolation?
Northern Rail got the ScotRail cast-offs. They're actually not too bad. Not sure why ScotRail threw them in the bin in the first place, though they are hellishly noisy if you live near the line.
Northern Rail got the ScotRail cast-offs. They’re actually not too bad. Not sure why ScotRail threw them in the bin in the first place, though they are hellishly noisy if you live near the line.
They fail on disability access and on safety grounds.
They are all now gone, Northern have actually got some quite nice new trains.
I’m not convinced the entire scheme isnt just a giant keynsian scheme to increase GDP, employment etc
Nothing wrong with that as a concept, as long as the resulting infrastructure is useful and the money gets spent in the UK as much as possible. And whilst the efficacy or not of the implementation, we do really need a proper high speed rail network. Which will ultimately need to include a London to Birmingham leg.
Birmingham is only just outside London. If the new lines don’t go any further than that, it’ll be a wasted opportunity to improve our north/south links. Levelling down.
A mate of mine works in the ready-mix industry, he sent me a picture of the temporary access roads for one of the HS2 works, it’s even got kerbs on it…
Compounds are going to be there for a while, so all the legislation around water runoff, silts/oils capture will be required the same as any permanent commercial/industrial estate. Best practice comes into it too as the Govt cant be seen to be using mud covered compounds and haul roads, dragging muck onto the highway as the 1000s of cars and trucks per day pull in and out. I would expect the haul roads and compounds/offices to have similar in depth design as the likes of a local out of town development where the likes of Currys, halfords, Burger King etc. all congregate. It would probably be a drastic underestimate to say £1m in groundworks per compound - add in design, supervision, utilities and offices on top...
Thought I had heard there were plans to redevelop some of the compound areas once all is complete to industrial/commercial hubs to bring some minor additional gains and reduce the waste/CO2 from demobilising the compounds, but I cant find anything with a very cursory google.
Northern Rail got the ScotRail cast-offs. They’re actually not too bad. Not sure why ScotRail threw them in the bin in the first place, though they are hellishly noisy if you live near the line.
They fail on disability access and on safety grounds.
They are all now gone, Northern have actually got some quite nice new trains.
And Scotrail still have 40 year old 125's...
It's sounding like the whole of HS2 and railway upgrades are driven by construction companies wanting to make money rather than a national plan to get people to use efficient, clean, quiet and reliable trains...
As for what the money should be spent on – thats easy – digital infrastructure – world class connectivity.
I'm sure there there was someone who suggested this...
get people to use efficient, clean, quiet and reliable trains
When it comes to long distance north/south journeys, what is the point, when in a normal year those lines are at capacity running over packed services? Without improved connectivity, it’s road and air that will expand for this kind of journey, not rail travel. Clogging our roads and increasing pollution from internal flights.
I’m sure there there was someone who suggested this…
And publicly owned communications infrastructure (tasked with delivering the coverage and performance for all that private companies have taken subsidies to provide but failed to finish delivering) wasn’t proposed as an alternative to better public transport infrastructure… both were proposed at the last election by “someone”. It’s not either or. The “regions” need both. Rather than neither. Levelling down.
The cancellation point is actually what really gets my goat. It is quite clear that for some time HS2 has been intent on wasting as much money, and doing as much environmental damage as humanly possible in order that it can make exactly this point. It is utterly shocking. It may not be illegal but it really should be
This is so true. I see the evidence for that all through Warwickshire.
Much of the initial large-scale clearing was also done at the height of Lockdowns when everyone who might GAS was busy trying not to catch the plague. Absolutely against much of the advice that the rest of us had to follow.
I’d be really interested to know the direct (direct delays, additional fencing, security etc.) and indirect costs (indirect delays, redesign, additional licensing, reviews, reports etc.) that the HS2 project has incurred as result of campaigning against it throughout its lifecycle to date, compared to the total project cost to date and predicted final costs
I imagine that anyone planning the project, looking at how they were going to destroy such a monumentally huge amount of areas of habitat, beautiful places, woodlands and force people off their land, might have had a tiny inkling that they had better budget for some opposition to that in the entire cost.
You don't just go ****ing up the countryside and not expect there to be anyone trying to stop you. I'm sure it would have formed part of the 'budgeting projections'....Lolz
Important to note this just isn’t about (not) improving routes between Yorkshire and London, it wrecks plans to better join cities up across the North of England. Levelling down.
The capacity argument has been completely blown out of the water by the pandemic.
I’m interested in this view. I’ve not seen any credible evidence that rail traffic is going to be permanently depressed. Happy to see some projections on this if you have it. I can see stuff forecasting the near future, but nothing yet that’s decades away taking into account some of the changes we may well face in the longer term.
WFH is one thing, tighter restrictions on driving in urban areas could counteract it. Pandemic is not going to last forever in a disruptive way.
best thing i i heared in weeks, the tories ditching this idiotic plan of wasting 80 billion to make it a bit quicker to get to london.
a few points.
us folk up here dont want to come to london.
we can get about just fine up here.
spend a fraction on upgrades.
give half the money, 40 billion to the health service.
Us up north would like to be able to do Manchester to Leeds quicker by train than by bike.
I can see stuff forecasting the near future, but nothing yet that’s decades away taking into account some of the changes we may well face in the longer term.
My local train operator in the North is forecasting to be back to 100% of pre-Covid numbers within 3 to 5 years at most. They’re already at 100% on most weekends and on some weekends the leisure travel demand is above pre-Covid now, such is the strength of the leisure and holiday demand.
So it is almost inevitable that rail demand will bounce back very soon at a regional level. Less certain for longer rail journeys (think Leeds or Sheffield to London) given the lower demand for business travel and remote meetings becoming the norm. But this just adds to the case for improved east west connectivity across the Pennines.
Well i'm disappointed the Northern section was cancelled. High speed rail in the UK would be nice.
Maybe I'm biased, but I always thought it would make more sense to start the project in Yorkshire/lancashire and work south and north from there.
I don't think anynone ever said, god, I wish I could get from leeds to kings cross 25mins faster, as you're still sat on a train for circa 2.5/3 hours. You could drive it in that, and if it's a short notice buisniess requirement/walk on fair your looking at over £100 for a ticket. It can be cheaper to drive or fly assuming you already have access to a car/local airport.
I used to fly from leeds to southampton on a semi regualr basis with work, as it generally worked out cheaper in terms of hours lost vs ticket price.
Maybe I’m biased, but I always thought it would make more sense to start the project in Yorkshire/lancashire and work south and north from there.
Actually Glasgow or Edinburgh and work south
Its always just been a vanity project and its been clear for years its not going past Birmingham
for what has been spent to save a few minutes and to open up birmingham as London commuter territory the rest of the UK could have had a decent set of upgrades
Capacity was the only valid argument for it. Journey time could be shortened much more cheaply by improving the local facilities. I used to take the train from Warrington to London. The 4 miles from my house to Bank Quay station, finding somewhere to park and walking the last bit took 45 min, the 165 miles to Euston took 90min. Relocating the station to be next to the M62, with a proper sized car park, would have made the journey much more attractive.
