Okay with a protest march starting today along the route of hs2 and with argyle fans all over the country just thought I would start a topic about peoples opinions on it. I am against it for the following reasons. I dont consider it will help them up North but will just increase the daily commuting area fir London. Birmingham to london will take 50 minutes. Leeds to London 1 hour 30 mins. With them being within the commuter belt it will increase house prices with no long term employment increases.
Currently Leeds to London is 2 hours 30 whereas a similar distance from Plymouth takes 4 hours 30 without the need for buses at Dawlish. At present they estimate the cost to be 170 billion surely it would be better spent improving the existing network over the whole country.

I agree the money could be better spent on improving the whole network, and certainly to the South West (natural bias).

Have considered the arguments for and against and genuinely can't feel strongly enough one way or another.

From an environmental point of view, on one hand its construction will destroy swathes of countryside and natural habitat etc, but on the other hand an electrified fast track to the North and even Scotland, powered by renewable energy, could out compete the need for air travel and reduce our carbon footprint.

It will be many years before the country will see any return on its investment, and our economy is going to need more immediate resources to cover the impact of the predicted virus induced world recession and the non mentionable 'B' word hardship we are told we will need to endure before our economy takes off again.

It will however provide many jobs in a time of likely need. Although I do fear we will be burdening our children with a debt that could take generations to pay back

I agree the money could be better spent on improving the whole network, and certainly to the South West (natural bias).

Have considered the arguments for and against and genuinely can't feel strongly enough one way or another.

From an environmental point of view, on one hand its construction will destroy swathes of countryside and natural habitat etc, but on the other hand an electrified fast track to the North and even Scotland, powered by renewable energy, could out compete the need for air travel and reduce our carbon footprint.

It will be many years before the country will see any return on its investment, and our economy is going to need more immediate resources to cover the impact of the predicted virus induced world recession and the non mentionable 'B' word hardship we are told we will need to endure before our economy takes off again.

It will however provide many jobs in a time of likely need. Although I do fear we will be burdening our children with a debt that could take generations to pay back

Ah will it help the environment though they will be destroying miles of habitat and if you take its route and where it stops are it has been designed to service the airport hubs. It wont stop at small towns along the route like crewe. Or Doncaster etc etc. This is another reason why I cannot see it long term creating employment for the north but will just bring it into the london commuting area and easing the air congestion around london. Wouldnt it be better to spend the 170 billion electrifying the complete network. We wouldnt be destroying the habitat and possibly better on the atmosphere.

We don't need a HS2. Recent events have proved this.

The money could be better used to put in hyper-fast peer-to-peer networks in across the country to allow better, faster communications between businesses rather than making a 19th century form of travel that little bit quicker. It won't make a business-person more efficient by getting them from Birmingham to London 30 minutes quicker: they won't get any more work done: just get home earlier.

We don't need a HS2. Recent events have proved this.

The money could be better used to put in hyper-fast peer-to-peer networks in across the country to allow better, faster communications between businesses rather than making a 19th century form of travel that little bit quicker. It won't make a business-person more efficient by getting them from Birmingham to London 30 minutes quicker: they won't get any more work done: just get home earlier.

Agreed.

A total waste of money now, if it wasn't before.

We need to be prepared for the next pandemic and how many hospitals would this buy?

The PR team for it have been rubbish. They only commented on the journey time savings. The main benefit I see is it frees up room for freight on an already full railway system. That is the main benefit.

Do I agree with it? No. I think it destroys too much ancient woodland. The reopening of branch lines is the better option but after this we shall have to see if that is even feasible as train operating companies are losing so much money and the demand may not come back.

The PR team for it have been rubbish. They only commented on the journey time savings. The main benefit I see is it frees up room for freight on an already full railway system. That is the main benefit.

Do I agree with it? No. I think it destroys too much ancient woodland. The reopening of branch lines is the better option but after this we shall have to see if that is even feasible as train operating companies are losing so much money and the demand may not come back.

You could say the PR team have been very good. The whole project is massively over budget and assumed to deliver less than 60p for every £ invested, but that is based on 20 journeys per hour, when in reality only 16 are possible. This was brought up by Lord Berkley

"In his report, Lord Berkeley says he wrote to Mr Oakervee to detail his concerns with the [HS2] review. These included “a bias towards accepting HS2’s evidence in preference to those of others, leading to what I considered to be a critical but supportive recommendation for HS2 Ltd to continue. I do not believe that the evidence that the review received supports this view.”

https://home.bt.com/news/latest-news/parliament-was-seriously-misled-over-hs2-review-panel-deputy-chairman-11364422769177

The project has always been a vanity project for Boris.

Boris's column.

Cheap at £140 billion and rising

A topic I have to admit to sitting on the fence about – and feeling a bit uncomfortable about it. To be honest I feel I need to make the effort to get myself properly informed because it is obviously important – but that would need seriously looking at the evidence for the economic case put forward by its proponents ……….

The counter arguments are much more understandable – I heard Chris Packham (who I’ve got a lot of respect for) talking very persuasively about the impact on the environment recently and I can’t help wondering if the world of the future really does necessitate people travelling a few hundred miles that little bit faster. One thing this pandemic has certainly given a boost to is the whole concept of remote working. We could all see that coming but any lingering office macho stuff about “shirking from home” has surely been blown away now as we’ve all been forced to adapt. Apparently estate agents have now been inundated with people now wanting to move out of towns and cities into rural areas as people realise that with modern tech you don’t have to operate from expensive, over-crowded pads in the south east. In which case…… why do we need HS2?

Having said that I still feel a little uncomfortable pinning my colours firmly to the anti-HS2 mast without making some effort to look at the economic case for it. Surely, successive governments wouldn’t be spending billions like this on a vanity project or just to benefit vested interests? ….. and it is a helluva lot of money that you could do a lot of other good things with…….

Ave-It, that's pretty much how I'd see it too.


Economically, it can be argued there is/was a certain amount of sense in making it easier to get to London where - broadly speaking - the nation makes its money.

However, seeing the sums being lavished on saving Birmingham commuters 45m a journey whilst the only line to Cornwall literally falls into the sea is a hard circle to square.

I hope you're right that companies are changing how they see remote working - I've worked in a few different offices in London and every single one has had an air of "if you're working from home you're probably shirking".

But if your working from home you can afford an element of shirk compared to the wasted time of the morning and evening commute, which in a lot of cases can amount to between two to four hours a day.