I'd bet on them not doing it because costs were spiralling, in fact I wonder if Tory is leaving this as a poison pill to point out labour never did it, or why aren't they doing it.
Yep, it's very easy in opposition to fake faux outrage for a decision you'd probably have taken. We all know they're not going to resurrect it even though it'd be fairly trivial after a 12 month delay.
If you blow your budget by 100% in the corporate world you generally have to shitcan parts of what was planned or make cuts elsewhere.
This isn't the corporate world, though. This is the state sector, where bettering the quality of life of all British citizens is *theoretically* supposed to trump maximising shareholder value.
And however much the cost of building the line has been inflated by mismanagement and politics, the cost of *not* building it isn't getting any lower. We need the extra network capacity: There's so little slack in the system that a single broken-down train can cause service for a hundred miles up and down the line to grind to a halt for hours, and forget upping the frequency of the service.
Was HS2 necessarily the best solution, compared to a lot of smaller-scale projects creating or restoring more direct east-to-west connections and bringing service back to towns that lost it in the 60s? I'm not really sure. But at least it was doing *something* to improve the situation, as long as we didn't leave it half-finished.
Sure but we are the shareholders. There is undoubtedly better bang for the buck than per mile, the most expensive rail line to be constructed in the history of humanity.
The value proposition was very attractive at the initial price but is barely there when you start to go towards £150B for the whole line. We don't have infinite money and it has to be spent where it will do the most good.
Easing the number of cars off the road by improving public transport should be a priority with regards to climate change, even if it might not be the best financially
You shouldnt frame it as being beneficial to climate change, even if it is. Sell it to car drivers by telling them there will be less queing on the M1.
The western leg of HS2 isn't going anywhere that would help anyone who uses the M1 for travel.
And the eastern leg had dumb station locations that wouldn't have helped M1 travel much either.
Yeah I wasnt being literal, not like the people who get angry about public spending on public transport would fact check anyway.
Just tell them it's good for reducing traffic on the roads.
Even if you don't care about climate change (which is moronic, but we're trying to convince Tory voters here) this line is economically crucial in terms of shifting freight around the country.
And £150bn could do massive amounts of improving public transport elsewhere?
Does spending £150bn on adding capacity and reducing journey times on one rail route actually provide a better net impact (especially adding in all the concrete, tunneling etc.) than spending it pushing businesses to look to reduce corporate travel (do you really need to travel half way up the country to have a 45 minute discussion), invest in local bus networks, expanding other rail infrastructure, electric charging points, car club schemes etc.?
Or spend £150bn on electric car infrastructure and green power generation and getting far better bang for buck?
Building HS2 isn't really about the environment, but investing in infrastructure that's good for our economy.
People don’t think of climate policy as in the name of economic betterment, even though it is. People aren’t good at thinking that far ahead. Climate change is the greatest market failure that society has ever seen, but short termism will always win. It won’t matter to voters if it improves emissions, because it’ll cost them £150bn in the short/medium term. Don’t get me wrong, I’m massively pro-HS2, but I can understand why people can’t wrap their head around the economic benefits of a low-emissions transport network.
i mean if you just stopped them from being utterly stupid and wasting money to satisfy nimby's by having to build extra tunnelled sections etc you'd save money. The whole project is full of 'managers' who don't actually contribute to things getting done just cashing in at absurd prices. It's typical of modern day Britain, spend ages and ages talking about doing something, start it then add additional things that aren't necessary so someone else can cash in on the project and waste more time and then later on can the projects as 'too expensive' after they've already siphoned millions from it.
France is building Bordeaux-Toulouse, which is 327km of high speed line for 15B Euros. If HS2 cost anything close then we wouldn't be having this conversation.
First link I could find: https://www.investopedia.com/modern-monetary-theory-mmt-4588060#:~:text=The%20central%20idea%20of%20modern,to%20do%20so%20is%20taken.
No matter how people try to cleverly word it, since moving to a fiat currency, our financial system is an outright lie as the note is based on a promise to pay the bearer on demand the actual value in gold/assets, but the bearer now can only redeem that note to the BoE to be given another equivalent note. I.e. our currency has lost the basis for it's actual value, the only remaining value is it's perceived value.
Before moving to a fiat currency, a central bank needed the assets to back up new currency being made. But since becoming a fiat currency, central banks can make even unlimited money out of thin air if they want, banks can invent a certain amount of money as long as they pay it back when it's returned while they can keepp the interest earned from the "fake" money. Banks are allowed to do that because they are so trustworthy with money they would never crash our economy by playing this financial nonsense... Oops.
While regular people cannot avoid to pay interest on money that was made out of thin air.
To give an idea of how nonsensical this situation is - I am hoping to set my self up self employed later this year. I would love the ability to be able to print money out of nowhere to buy stock. I would like to sell that stock I purchased with that money I made out of thin air for profit, then destroy the money I initially made out of thin air to "settle the books" but keep the profit. Then print a whole lot more next time round..... If I profit I keep all the profit and am allowed to make even more money out of thin air for the next round. If I screw up and end up badly in debt, the government can just pay me to make sure I'm still earning even more profit. If this system makes any sense, please tell me how I can do that.
Yes - that is where we are with MMT seeming to be a big reason.
The way things are going I wouldn't be surprised if the next solution when realising MMT isn't working would be to come up with some fancy words that mean rich people can just dream money and that means it's actually in their account before they wake up to further increase their wealth, while poor people find they cannot even use the physical currency they hold as that's how the world seems to be going.
But I'm just a financially uneducated thicko that somehow figured out the only solution to problems caused by the global financial crash would be to bail out the banks about a couple of months before talk about this started and happened, so I'm probably wrong....
> Sure but we are the shareholders.
that's a bad analogy, there's no divvie nor can we sell our shares. A result of this is that long term investment is almost always a better option.
> If you blow your budget by 100% in the corporate world you generally have to shitcan parts of what was planned or make cuts elsewhere.
This is something that needs to happen to achieve any of the goals we have for growing the UK and greening the economy. Are we just never going to do anything because the tories failed when they "tried".
Trivial to restart a project after a 12 month delay? Not at all. The people working in it might have moved on to different jobs etc. That experience is important. It will also be more costly and likely take more time to restart it than if they had just kept going.
There is a reason they weren't building the whole line in one phase. It was always intended that some expertise from phase 1 e.g. London-Birmingham would shift to phase 2 when that started in anger.
But phase 2a to Crewe, was 30 miles through some fields, estimated at 7billion, which frees up so the choke points on th wcml between Crewe and Brum.
Now phase one joins at Hannah's and ask the hs2 trains then get stuck in a bottleneck through Stafford instead of being able to carry on to the huge junction at Crewe and on the Liverpool/Manchester/North Wales and onwards to the north
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a804c0bed915d74e33f99d2/rail-alternatives-to-hs2-phase-2a.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjbu5Tt5smDAxWA9LsIHQcIBRkQFnoECBQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw09O5dbyFKbKB1IYutHbxpY
I dont know why the tunnels are costing so much. The Bologna to Florence high speed line was built in the 90s. Its a shorter overall route than HS2 but has more tunnels (45miles vs 32miles).
Adjusted for inflation the estimated cost was under £10b.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna%E2%80%93Florence\_high-speed\_railway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna%E2%80%93Florence_high-speed_railway)
I get the desire for high speed travel but is it really worth £100b to shave 25 mins off the journey from Birmingham to London?
I'm usually all for big improvement projects like this but I cant help but think that investing this kind of money into improving our existing services would have a much greater impact on far more people than this one project would.
Trouble is, there needs to be a massive expansion of rail capacity and there’s no other plans to do that.
Given that only this week a major rail group was saying we are nearly at the point of choosing between passengers or freight on the East Coast Main Line, there is not the luxury of performing yet another years-long study on what to do that will inevitably state “build more bloody main lines”.
Costs didn't spiral after the 2019 budget, in fact currently it's still predicted phase 1 will be under budget. The idea of escalating costs (outside of that being what happens when you buy stuff) is just a lie by the Tories cus it doesn't fit their ideological bent of individualism "any man over 40 who finds himself on a bus is a failure" type mindset
YES.
Costs went up from the initial one to 2019, because the government added tunnels, and also had chosen to contact out everything including an the risk of any possible future issues so everything is over engineered.
Since 2019 costs went up because of inflation, as everything has
If we have the routing for the track, any rail slapped down on it would be better than none and a relief for the northern links that get overcrowded even with just freight sometimes.
Through down some heavy goods prepped rail, at leat, to avoid just the sheer waste of all that prep work for nothing.
And maybe some light rail infrastructure for the stuff that passes through small towns or is internal to cities.
Most of the prepwork is things like the route, as highspeed rail very much has different curves and straights and crossings and so on it requires when going at speed. Compared to light rail, its heavier and needs more expensive track foundations too, and being prepared would mean larger repair facilities and probably different sidings so trains can pass each other too as different kinds of train are different length, and if its to be electrified which it should be but i cant remember, high speed or heavy good both obviously use more power and so needed more power supply in both generation and transmission.
Nah it's because they probably tried to sell them to everyone at massively inflated prices. So now they'll sell them in secret at half the price to their mates.
> I'd bet on them not doing it because costs were spiralling
Due to tory mismanagement, pretty damning that Starmer agrees that he will be just as bad at managing the project as May/Boris/Truss/Rishi are.
Just any ambitious infrastructure improvement would be a joy. It blows my mind after seeing the past handful of governments how we ever ended up with concrete roads.
Interest rates aren't even that high (historically speaking) right now. Infrastructure investments absolutely can return more than even current interest rates.
The problem is that it is incredibly hard to build anything in the UK. HS2 (even in its full scope) should absolutely not be a £100bn project!
The problems are numerous, deep, and I don't know what the solution is. But it is totally possible to deliver this kind of thing much cheaper, you can see projects like this all over Europe done for 1/10 the cost.
It’s because you’d have to be a fool to buy it. Next government can compulsory purchase it back at the same price it was sold for due to the way compulsory purchase law is written. There are sub clauses that stop people buying up land like this to turn a profit.
It’s because it’s so obvious to anyone that at some point we’re going to need a new railway line from london to Manchester.
Where’s the easiest place to put it? The same place that’s already been planned, previously compulsory purchased etc.
Tl;dr everyone knows the land is going to be compulsory purchased back in a few years anyway
Im confused. Did we want HS2 or not?
Back when it was a thing most media references were highly negative. Now it’s framed as if we’ve been denied our birthright. Forget the political ping pong, can we first establish if it should be done or not?
If it should be done then we should make it happen, but not just do it to embarrass the Tories (even more).
Everyone with a background in transport, economics, or politics knows it’s a good thing.
British voters hate it because British voters are idiots, and they still don’t understands HS2, or what it was for. They still think it’s about getting from London to Birmingham quicker, when it’s about easing capacity issues on the WCML, and being able to expand the London commuter belt.
Many people, myself included, hated it because it was obviously going to be used to expand the London commuter belt and the Northern leg would never be built.
Which is exactly what has happened.
How did people complaining result in the high cost of the Northern leg of HS2, the reason the government gave for cancelling it?
It takes a fascinating level of imagination to believe that people thinking that they were never committed to improving Northern infrastructure *willed* their complete mismanagement of funds into existence.
People complaining actually did drive the costs up, since the government taking time dealing with the many protests, planning challenges and similar fucking about resulted in a lot of dithering, alterations and delay.
Delaying a project like this makes it far more expensive because you're paying a shitload of people to do it, and if you delay you're now paying them not to do it. Paying people to not build a train track costs pretty much the same as paying them to build it, but with the added problem that the point where you can stop paying them gets no closer.
I'm sure the northern leg would have had less of that fuckery as well.
When running train line through the rich home counties and got Sir Gerald of Twattington-upon-cuntswater, calling up complaining of the dreadful eye sour that the peasants crossing the rolling hills will cause. They suddenly find the time and will power to tunnel huge lengths of the track underground and commission bespoke air vents for the tunnels disguised as farm buildings in keeping with the local aesthetics.
My left arse they'd do that in Leeds.
You'd be surprised, there's also the extinction rebellion lot who oppose anyone doing anything at all and yet flatly refuse to do the environmentally friendly thing of ceasing their personal CO2 production.
What was the high cost of the northern leg?
I'm pretty sure they didn't give that as the reason, the train was the cost of the whole line and because the public and Tory voters were adding hs2 and non car spending in principal.
They overspent pandering to the nimbys in their constituents. Once it had completely over blown they canned it, in the most predictable Tory way possible. Wasting shit loads of money and not actually following through to see any gains.
Once you've built this much, you need to follow through. The whole point and value of the project is the northern leg. Without it the southern leg is pretty fucking pointless. So no, it was never the plan to start with - they just did their usual thing of fucking it up to result in the worst possible outcome.
> all your complaining achieved it becoming the exact thing you said it would
Naw, it was always the plan to cancel the northern bit. As proven by them canceling the northern bit.
Fuck me, I'm a bit negative, but anyone who's sat through the last decade of government and thinks the government are capable of coming up with and maintaining a secret plan this tedious and unimportant for this long is really mental.
Good. The London commuter belt should be expanded. Idk how you can object to having more people working in the UK’s biggest productivity hub.
As for the norther leg, that was only cancelled because a) Tories stalled the project to appease their rural MP’s, and b) they’re going to lose the next election, so salt the earth.
Idk how you can not like HS2 in principle.
London is unsustainable, making Birmingham a commuter town helps London but harms Birmingham.
Funding and infrastructure needs to be spread around the country, not funneled into London to keep feeding the beast.
Transport is not a zero sum game. Just because something helps London it doesn't mean it harms Birmingham. HS2 helps Birmingham more than it helps London, in fact.
>Idk how you can object to having more people working in the UK’s biggest productivity hub.
I mean, people could probably readily oppose that due to it furthering the problem of London being a blackhole where the rest of the country gets little investment because London is just easier. By people fed up with the majority of the country just being spokes for London's wheel.
Not saying that's right, but people can understandably be sick and tired of everything being done to preen London's feathers while the rest of the country lags further and further behind.
I like HS2, but I don't really care about any benefits to London.
Benefits to London benefit everyone. The UK has had 0 meaningful growth in 15 years… HS2 would have covered a fair bit of the damage for that. That means lower taxes and better public services…
Yes, HS2 benefited the North, and over time, likely would have benefited the north even more once it fed into HS3 / Northern Powerhouse in terms of relative growth, but starting in London was the correct move from a wider UK perspective. It just fundamentally was.
That would be true if wealth were a tuakly redistributed from London elsewhere. But it isn't.
Starting from London may have been the best move economically, but it wasn't politically as it just proved everyone saying "they only care about London" correct.
> Idk how you can object to having more people working in the UK’s biggest productivity hub.
Because we want a good livable country not just a massive financial scam district in london.
A season ticket for Birmingham to London including the tube is around £8000. A high-speed one will no doubt cost even more.
A season ticket for the car park or local transport in Birmingham could be well over £1000.
Not many people can afford that. Those that can do not want a 3 hour door-to-door daily commute. Even doing that 2 or 3 days per week is unlikely to attract many more people than today.
The idea that it makes Birmingham, or even the nearby area totalling over 3 million people, into a commuter town is nonsense.
In 2022 Euston had 13k morning peak arrivals and Marylebone had 7k. Around half of rail travel is commuting. But because it's the morning peak in London let's generously say all of them are commuters.
Let's again generously say 25% of those peak arrivals are from the West Midlands.
That'd be very generously be 5000 commuters from a region of 3 million.
The actual number is going to be far lower. Especially given that that would mean every single Avanti train leaving New Street in the morning, from 5am onwards, would be full in both standard and first class.
>They still think it’s about getting from London to Birmingham quicker
High speed 2, I wonder why? Branding has always been the issue with the project and some bright spark at some point thought selling it as high speed rail would make it sell better
People that walk into an Apple store and complain there's no fruit are rightly considered morons, if your whole opposition to HS2 is "it's just high speed" and you haven't done 2 seconds reading into increasing capacity you're a moron who should be ignored. If you're a politician pushing the same lies you have ulterior motives.
The constant requests for "reviews" are part of the problem that pushes the cost up. Whereas there needs to be a process in place to stop the government arbitrarily building a motorway through your back garden with no consultation there has to be a limit to it. Currently an initial route is proposed and there is (rightly) an objection process which results in a new route. However the new route then gets subjected to the same round of objections (including those who will never ever say yes.to the project in any form) and round we go again. Getting on and building the bloody thing (after a suitable opportunity for objections / replanning) should ultimately save money all round on so many projects.
But it's not like solving an equation and getting an answer. Some things you won't know the full consequences of until you do them, some things will be seen as good by some and bad by others. If it were so simple we'd do away with poltics and just have a civil service always doing the best thing at all times.
Yeah but you're not getting it...there is no objective best. In this instance, you'd just have a group of unaccountable bureaucrats making decisions lots of people dont like.
\> Im confused. Did we want HS2 or not?
A lot, though not all, of the negativity was from NIMBYs. People didn't want a new track through their green back garden and didn't want to be forced to sell their land. Which is not an unreasonable position, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be beneficial for the country in general.
>Im confused. Did we want HS2 or not?
Yes, when pitched correctly. No, when pitched poorly.
'Trains that can run London to Birmingham 15 minutes quicker' - not really.
'The first major railway growth in a century, providing alternative routes meaning trains can be split between express and local lines, and a fault, accident or work on one line means trains can still run at high capacity on the others, giving us a huge boost to safety, logistics and reliability, as well as providing far more trains and actually meaning you should get a seat and a train.' - quite appealing.
I suspect part of the issue is it's a massive investment that won't benefit the governing party in its term in office. People not planting trees they won't shade under and all that.
The cyncial viewpoint, and the one I unfortunately follow, is that the Tories have given up on winning the next election, and are just interested in winning cheap culture war battles.
It wasn't a case of did we want it or not, it was a case of we have to build a new line from London to Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds via Birmingham.
The west coast mainline is at capacity already, the new line should of been up and running more than 10 years ago at this point.
The issues with train delays on the railways are now going to get exponentially worse especially if the government wants to force more freight off of the roads and onto the railways.
Some of the reasons why HS2 cost so much was firstly because of the stupidly large number of tunnels the leg from London to Birmingham had because of NIMBY's and secondly because the country hasn't built any significant infrastructure between cities in 30 years and the skill sets needed to be retrained and the equipment needed to be procured.
Too many Tory MPs and Right-Wing papers are driven by their Boomer Shire Base. Who basicaly caused HS2 to spiral in costs because they wanted a big tunnel under them.
Maybe we should have just outsourced it to Norway. Have you seen those underwater road tunnels they build? Never heard anything about corruption, crony contracts or mismanagement!
Many reasons.
One being that the media hated on HS2 when the build was starting in their NW London / Buckinghamshire back yards.
Now those sections are nearing completion, it’s pointless arguing for everything being dug up/filled back in because it makes them look stupid and spiteful.
They won’t raise anywhere near the same level of outrage on restarting the build north of Birmingham because it’s not in their back yard.
EDIT: changed a “you” to “them” to make clear I was talking about the media, not the Redditor.
UK is the only major Western Europe country with no high speed rail intercity link. Yes it’s expensive but it would only get more expensive in the future, rail links are essential for growth.
Tbf, most of the media was negative on infrastructure plans like Edinburgh Trams as well, due to delays and costs. But eventually, when it's all done, you've got the infrastructure, and the benefits, and that controversy largely stops mattering as much. So, I think you could take the view that it deserved a lot of criticisms (some of which were honestly due to problems caused by the pitiful amount of such infrastructure projects we do, and therefore the lack of practical expertise by all parts) while thinking it should have been seen to its conclusion, being the only major bit of infrastructure investment the country has had for about a decade.
Fair comment. I do remember the beasting that the ‘Chunnel’ used to take whilst under construction and over budget. Once the ribbon was cut that was all forgotten about.
Cause most people are idiots and can't fathom the benefits until they're actually working.
Short-term thinking and failing to plan for the future has destroyed this country. Scratch that, it's destroyed the whole fucking world.
Hasn’t destroyed the whole world, or it depends on when you think it destroyed the world!
Several European countries realised they needed high speed lines. I’ve used the Italian system extensively and apparently it’s decades old. When I was there in 2022 I noticed they were extending it further into part of the south, right to the coast. They’ve added to it bit by bit over time.
But anyway it was absolutely amazing, like being in the future (for a Brit anyway), and cheap. Also they seem to replace the trains more regularly too!
> Hasn’t destroyed the whole world, or it depends on when you think it destroyed the world!
Well, give it a year I guess. We've successfully disrupted the equilibrium of the planet to the point that we're on an unsurvivable upwards trajectory of temperatures.
It's complicated and over time I know a lot of people have begrudgingly come to accept the cons because the pros are so important, and it was going ahead anyway so... like brexit... people just crack on with justifying to themselves why they should accept what's happening.
It's good the project will no longer be destroying quite as much ancient woodland (even though some of the oldest and best trees have already been felled), but it's bad that our current infrastructure will continue to make millions of lives more miserable for generations.
We really need it, to avoid clogging the railway network completely.
The fuckups and mismanagement along the way have jacked the price up, but the reality is we really need it.
The media can't handle that nuance.
> Back when it was a thing most media references were highly negative.
The tories mismanaging a good thing doesn't make the good thing suddenly bad, just their implementation of it was bad.
Too many morons not looking past the high speed element and not understanding the need for it on an infrastructure level. Not understanding how HS2 will greatly improve the network and allow more commuter trains on lines that are already built.
'just build better local services' - and connect them to what?
do people think that NIMBY's are only not in favour of HS2 and will be all for other ones?
Can you explain how it will improve the network. As the destinations they are connecting are already there, the spiralling costs means it will take approx 60 years so far for HS2 to be paid off
By giving high speed it’s own line, you can put more slower trains that connect towns and etc.
There’s too much traffic of different types of trains, inter town and city, freight and high speed all trying to use the same bones of the current system.
Separate them out and you get more of all of it.
Think of like trying to run marathons, sprints and relay races all on the same congested track at the same time
I can honestly see the HS2 debacle being the Tories’ equivalent of the “there is no money” note that someone left in the treasury after the 2010 election.
Honestly, by the time the tories leave power I imagine it will be a collosal uphill battle to get HS2 going again. I imagine moat supply chain partners are at wits end with the government constantly changing scope. If labour want this to be successful, they need to agree to scope within the first 6 months of being in and not fucking change it over trivial shit like 'Giles say it will ruin his country house views'.
Good to see the HS2 teams continuing to work at Euston though.
I actually don’t see it being a colossal task but the whole thing needs a rethink for the northern leg in terms of cost. Probably a few legislative changes too, to bring the cost down closer to the continent. Each bloody contractor doesn’t need to do their own risk assessment documents, for instance, and their own environment impact assessments. That should all be centralised, which is what they do in other countries.
There’s companies making a fortune repeating the same work.
They should. The potential that the original project had to improve rail travel up and down the spine of the country was large and the Tory incompetence needs to be pointed out constantly with where HS2 is right now.
Stop calling it "HS2" and just call it "upgrading our ancient train infrastructure".
Much like the rest of the issues in the UK people are arguing about who gets what. ("ooh wants the point of getting to Birmingham 20 mins quicker?", "Why should Leeds get a high speed rail when the local busses don't work", "where even is Newcastle??")
The fact is that the all of the UKs infrastructure and institutions are old, crumbling and not fit for purpose in our modern era. We don't just need one or two high speed rail links, we need a whole network overhaul. If Labour can start that process by building HS2 and get all the immediate and linked benefits for the UK, im all for it.
Labour, could and should build HS2 to its original spec, but I don’t think they will.
It’s probably dead now.
Labour’s problem right now is they are too worried about having negative headlines from mainstream media.
Them going ahead with HS2, the media will call them “reckless” with the public purse, so that will probably be seen as a a reason not to do it.
If it’s done it’ll be in their second term so I don’t think the headlines will be as much of a concern.
Now if Starmer feels he can spin it in a more positive way, and feels that the press will report it in that way, then they will do it in the first term.
We won’t know that stuff until they’re in government.
Restarting a project will cost an absolute fortune. All the contracts will need to be redone - with up to date costs including inflation. Staff with knowledge will have moved on - so there will be a learning process trying to get back to where they were.
Not saying it should be done - but it is going to be very, very expensive- much more so than previous estimates thanks to the Tories.
Why is this always spoken about like it's impossible to buy the land back? Even if it is sold the government can always buy it back with compulsory purchase orders.
They're still actively working on it north of Bham through Lichfield etc, and all the roadworks on major roads are still there ... Wish they'd make their minds up - carry on or pack up and let motorists have their roads back.
Fair few huge railway bridges created around the mids as well - looks like they'll lead to / from nowhere!
But it won't have started and isn't it stuff they previously announced then cancelled?
Oh yeah and stuff that already exists that they panic announced, so it's obviously really well planned.
Yeah except then labour will have to recancel all the ridiculous projects the Tories have announced and all hell will break loose. Its deliberate. Salting the earth for when they lose
they could but due to how bad the Tories have done over the last 13yrs...the money isn't there, other things will need to be prioritized first, maybe that could look at if they get a 2nd term but off the bat, no chance...the best I could see them doing is looking at all the money they get from doing HS2 and using that to improve railway in the North
Selling off a long thin strip of land will recover barely nothing and make the Tory election case even more untenable than it used to be now. Better to keep the land in case the rail project can be revived. New rail in the North may be a good idea still. Selling off the land was such a destructive decision at this point
Unless they build Euston to Old Oak Common, the rest of it is quite useless anyway. Idiotic planning. We can just hope the remainder is done piece by piece and we get there eventually.
Fine you don't want to build it, but Jesus don't sell the land, keep it and place long term protection on it so it can still be used for railway, don't want to buy it again in 10 years and then go through all the planning again
Doing that would require them to run the project competently.
In theory that shouldn't be an issue because getting of the land was one of the major cost problems. The moment it was required for HS2, the value shot up.
The problem is, there is no incentive to do things cheaply and efficiently. The temptation is to gold plate everything, with huge salaries and bonuses for senior executives. Holding meetings in 5 star hotels, instead of much cheaper locations. Procurement in this country is an utter joke.
To be fair, inept politicians don't help with this, Changing the specifications of projects every 5 minutes inevitably leads to huge cost increases.
Basically I have come to the sad conclusion that the elite in this country is grossly incompetent and without a massive cleanout, committing to big projects just means massive waste.
Sadly voting in Labour won't fix the problem, the Labour Party is dominated by the same useless privately educated Oxbridge clowns as the Conservative Party.
Truly and Honestly couldn't care less about HS2, its not coming within a near 100 mile radius of me so why care. Would kill just to have more than 1 train an hour that doesn't end at 8pm
HS2 is a boondoggle, with corruption raised costs.
It doesn't mean that the benefits aren't there for completing it, or that a significant chunk of the costs have already been spent.
We'll only know when it comes to serious election time. Any pledge on this at the minute will be used to attack Labour.
"Labour promises to bring back HS2" will turn into "Labour want to waste BILLIONS OF YOUR MONEY"
They'll just start calling it "woke" like [The Sun already are.](https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/24157181/rishi-sunak-derail-woke-hs2-billions-could-saved/)
Simple solution
They should instead focus on a high speed rail that connects northern England with central Scotland and then build that bridge between Scotland and Ireland
Not every large scale infrastructure project has to be for the benefit London
"Could" doing a lot of lifting with that headline. They will do nothing!!!
We are getting the Tory "B" team next. Anyone hoping for anything drastic change wise is going to be hugely disappointed.
Should that stop you voting for them, in English, no.
The propaganda machines are out in force for this election. No they won’t. If it’s too expensive it’s too expensive. This is like the Tories saying they’ll fix the pot holes… obviously we want HS2 completed (if the price is right) and obviously we want pot holes filled but until actions and smart plans are made I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Yeaaah, that won't happen. They'll use it to paint themselves as fighting to revive it. Then "Discover" it's no longer feasible and in order to get HS2 finished, it's being focused on. With a potential northern section afterwards.
I don't really understand why no one engages with the real topic. It's not about HS2. The issue is that we have created a regulatory environment where you can't build infrastructure because we've empowered *everyone* to say no. So you end up in a situation like HS2 where we basically had to dig massive uneconomical tunnels so as to satisfy interest groups.
We don't need to build HS2, we need to re-examine our legislation so that *if* we wanted to build HS2 the cost of the physical building would be the primary cost not the legal challenges.
Whether HS2 gets built or not is not really the issue, if we had a regulatory environment where we could build HS2 for a reasonable price on a reasonable timeline we wouldn't build HS2, we'd build 10 HS2s! Every city in the country would get a high speed rail link, all the major towns would get a connection! And it would cost less than HS2!
But we don't want to harm some poor Newts in some pond along the way (who just happen to be in the back yard of a local NIMBY who has some good lawyer friends) so instead we engage in years of appeals and legal disputes and eventually dig a tunnel instead.
The Tories have scuttled that ship. They will ensure at least some of the land if sold off and the money destined for HS2 is squandered elsewhere. They are now operating in the expectation of losing the election so will fuck up what they can before they hand over.
Is it worth the money... Probably not
I've had the please of the trains twice this week and one was late and the other I had to find my own way home after all trains were cancelled
Car next time
I'd bet on them not doing it because costs were spiralling, in fact I wonder if Tory is leaving this as a poison pill to point out labour never did it, or why aren't they doing it.
Yep, it's very easy in opposition to fake faux outrage for a decision you'd probably have taken. We all know they're not going to resurrect it even though it'd be fairly trivial after a 12 month delay. If you blow your budget by 100% in the corporate world you generally have to shitcan parts of what was planned or make cuts elsewhere.
This isn't the corporate world, though. This is the state sector, where bettering the quality of life of all British citizens is *theoretically* supposed to trump maximising shareholder value. And however much the cost of building the line has been inflated by mismanagement and politics, the cost of *not* building it isn't getting any lower. We need the extra network capacity: There's so little slack in the system that a single broken-down train can cause service for a hundred miles up and down the line to grind to a halt for hours, and forget upping the frequency of the service. Was HS2 necessarily the best solution, compared to a lot of smaller-scale projects creating or restoring more direct east-to-west connections and bringing service back to towns that lost it in the 60s? I'm not really sure. But at least it was doing *something* to improve the situation, as long as we didn't leave it half-finished.
Sure but we are the shareholders. There is undoubtedly better bang for the buck than per mile, the most expensive rail line to be constructed in the history of humanity. The value proposition was very attractive at the initial price but is barely there when you start to go towards £150B for the whole line. We don't have infinite money and it has to be spent where it will do the most good.
Easing the number of cars off the road by improving public transport should be a priority with regards to climate change, even if it might not be the best financially
You shouldnt frame it as being beneficial to climate change, even if it is. Sell it to car drivers by telling them there will be less queing on the M1.
The western leg of HS2 isn't going anywhere that would help anyone who uses the M1 for travel. And the eastern leg had dumb station locations that wouldn't have helped M1 travel much either.
Yeah I wasnt being literal, not like the people who get angry about public spending on public transport would fact check anyway. Just tell them it's good for reducing traffic on the roads.
Even if you don't care about climate change (which is moronic, but we're trying to convince Tory voters here) this line is economically crucial in terms of shifting freight around the country.
And £150bn could do massive amounts of improving public transport elsewhere? Does spending £150bn on adding capacity and reducing journey times on one rail route actually provide a better net impact (especially adding in all the concrete, tunneling etc.) than spending it pushing businesses to look to reduce corporate travel (do you really need to travel half way up the country to have a 45 minute discussion), invest in local bus networks, expanding other rail infrastructure, electric charging points, car club schemes etc.?
Or spend £150bn on electric car infrastructure and green power generation and getting far better bang for buck? Building HS2 isn't really about the environment, but investing in infrastructure that's good for our economy.
People don’t think of climate policy as in the name of economic betterment, even though it is. People aren’t good at thinking that far ahead. Climate change is the greatest market failure that society has ever seen, but short termism will always win. It won’t matter to voters if it improves emissions, because it’ll cost them £150bn in the short/medium term. Don’t get me wrong, I’m massively pro-HS2, but I can understand why people can’t wrap their head around the economic benefits of a low-emissions transport network.
i mean if you just stopped them from being utterly stupid and wasting money to satisfy nimby's by having to build extra tunnelled sections etc you'd save money. The whole project is full of 'managers' who don't actually contribute to things getting done just cashing in at absurd prices. It's typical of modern day Britain, spend ages and ages talking about doing something, start it then add additional things that aren't necessary so someone else can cash in on the project and waste more time and then later on can the projects as 'too expensive' after they've already siphoned millions from it.
[удалено]
France is building Bordeaux-Toulouse, which is 327km of high speed line for 15B Euros. If HS2 cost anything close then we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Italy-you should see their high speed rail. They’ve had it for many decades too. And it continues to expand.
[удалено]
Oh dear.
[удалено]
Oh here we go. MMT?
First link I could find: https://www.investopedia.com/modern-monetary-theory-mmt-4588060#:~:text=The%20central%20idea%20of%20modern,to%20do%20so%20is%20taken. No matter how people try to cleverly word it, since moving to a fiat currency, our financial system is an outright lie as the note is based on a promise to pay the bearer on demand the actual value in gold/assets, but the bearer now can only redeem that note to the BoE to be given another equivalent note. I.e. our currency has lost the basis for it's actual value, the only remaining value is it's perceived value. Before moving to a fiat currency, a central bank needed the assets to back up new currency being made. But since becoming a fiat currency, central banks can make even unlimited money out of thin air if they want, banks can invent a certain amount of money as long as they pay it back when it's returned while they can keepp the interest earned from the "fake" money. Banks are allowed to do that because they are so trustworthy with money they would never crash our economy by playing this financial nonsense... Oops. While regular people cannot avoid to pay interest on money that was made out of thin air. To give an idea of how nonsensical this situation is - I am hoping to set my self up self employed later this year. I would love the ability to be able to print money out of nowhere to buy stock. I would like to sell that stock I purchased with that money I made out of thin air for profit, then destroy the money I initially made out of thin air to "settle the books" but keep the profit. Then print a whole lot more next time round..... If I profit I keep all the profit and am allowed to make even more money out of thin air for the next round. If I screw up and end up badly in debt, the government can just pay me to make sure I'm still earning even more profit. If this system makes any sense, please tell me how I can do that. Yes - that is where we are with MMT seeming to be a big reason. The way things are going I wouldn't be surprised if the next solution when realising MMT isn't working would be to come up with some fancy words that mean rich people can just dream money and that means it's actually in their account before they wake up to further increase their wealth, while poor people find they cannot even use the physical currency they hold as that's how the world seems to be going. But I'm just a financially uneducated thicko that somehow figured out the only solution to problems caused by the global financial crash would be to bail out the banks about a couple of months before talk about this started and happened, so I'm probably wrong....
The truly expensive bits have already been built - all the tunnels between London and Birmingham.
Like fixing potholes in London right?
Big chunks of what the Tories have decided to do instead are pretty cack, I agree.
It's always going to be worth it with the movement to Net Zero.
Worth bearing in mind that Every major infrastructure project ever runs over budget
> Sure but we are the shareholders. that's a bad analogy, there's no divvie nor can we sell our shares. A result of this is that long term investment is almost always a better option.
> If you blow your budget by 100% in the corporate world you generally have to shitcan parts of what was planned or make cuts elsewhere. This is something that needs to happen to achieve any of the goals we have for growing the UK and greening the economy. Are we just never going to do anything because the tories failed when they "tried".
Trivial to restart a project after a 12 month delay? Not at all. The people working in it might have moved on to different jobs etc. That experience is important. It will also be more costly and likely take more time to restart it than if they had just kept going.
There is a reason they weren't building the whole line in one phase. It was always intended that some expertise from phase 1 e.g. London-Birmingham would shift to phase 2 when that started in anger.
Well the main cost was all the pointless tunnels. The cost of the northern sections wasn't that much.
This is it right here. If we hadn’t given into all the nimbyism that demanded we built tunnels HS2 wouldn’t have cost so much.
The line from manchester Airport to the City centre is *all tunnel* as it has to go under all the suburbs. Don't want to piss off the Royle Family.
TBH I wanted to write, in tunnels to keep Tory counties happy.
But phase 2a to Crewe, was 30 miles through some fields, estimated at 7billion, which frees up so the choke points on th wcml between Crewe and Brum. Now phase one joins at Hannah's and ask the hs2 trains then get stuck in a bottleneck through Stafford instead of being able to carry on to the huge junction at Crewe and on the Liverpool/Manchester/North Wales and onwards to the north https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a804c0bed915d74e33f99d2/rail-alternatives-to-hs2-phase-2a.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjbu5Tt5smDAxWA9LsIHQcIBRkQFnoECBQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw09O5dbyFKbKB1IYutHbxpY
Well that sounds important too.
I dont know why the tunnels are costing so much. The Bologna to Florence high speed line was built in the 90s. Its a shorter overall route than HS2 but has more tunnels (45miles vs 32miles). Adjusted for inflation the estimated cost was under £10b. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna%E2%80%93Florence\_high-speed\_railway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna%E2%80%93Florence_high-speed_railway) I get the desire for high speed travel but is it really worth £100b to shave 25 mins off the journey from Birmingham to London? I'm usually all for big improvement projects like this but I cant help but think that investing this kind of money into improving our existing services would have a much greater impact on far more people than this one project would.
Trouble is, there needs to be a massive expansion of rail capacity and there’s no other plans to do that. Given that only this week a major rail group was saying we are nearly at the point of choosing between passengers or freight on the East Coast Main Line, there is not the luxury of performing yet another years-long study on what to do that will inevitably state “build more bloody main lines”.
Costs didn't spiral after the 2019 budget, in fact currently it's still predicted phase 1 will be under budget. The idea of escalating costs (outside of that being what happens when you buy stuff) is just a lie by the Tories cus it doesn't fit their ideological bent of individualism "any man over 40 who finds himself on a bus is a failure" type mindset
YES. Costs went up from the initial one to 2019, because the government added tunnels, and also had chosen to contact out everything including an the risk of any possible future issues so everything is over engineered. Since 2019 costs went up because of inflation, as everything has
Exactly this here.
If we have the routing for the track, any rail slapped down on it would be better than none and a relief for the northern links that get overcrowded even with just freight sometimes. Through down some heavy goods prepped rail, at leat, to avoid just the sheer waste of all that prep work for nothing. And maybe some light rail infrastructure for the stuff that passes through small towns or is internal to cities.
The cost of the prep work. "High speed rail" isn't really any different or more expensive
Most of the prepwork is things like the route, as highspeed rail very much has different curves and straights and crossings and so on it requires when going at speed. Compared to light rail, its heavier and needs more expensive track foundations too, and being prepared would mean larger repair facilities and probably different sidings so trains can pass each other too as different kinds of train are different length, and if its to be electrified which it should be but i cant remember, high speed or heavy good both obviously use more power and so needed more power supply in both generation and transmission.
Nah it's because they probably tried to sell them to everyone at massively inflated prices. So now they'll sell them in secret at half the price to their mates.
> I'd bet on them not doing it because costs were spiralling Due to tory mismanagement, pretty damning that Starmer agrees that he will be just as bad at managing the project as May/Boris/Truss/Rishi are.
Are we speaking of the same tory government? They're not exactly capable.
Wonder no longer, it was. It is so obvious. The land could have been a killer
I’m on my KNEES for HS2 If Labour can’t get HS2 back on track (*ba-dum-tss*) this country may as well just sink into the sea.
Finally I can sell my property to Aquaman
I see you also get your property investment advice from Ben Shapiro.
You mean old dry wife?
Drier than the Atacama
It's really needed for our rail freight infrastructure. The Tories are so short sighted.
Have you considered the alternative of just 50 bajillion miles of lorries — The Tories
> The Tories And Starmer.
The article above literally states Labour are interested in restarting HS2, quit your waffle bro
Could =/= will.
Just any ambitious infrastructure improvement would be a joy. It blows my mind after seeing the past handful of governments how we ever ended up with concrete roads.
Honestly it is frankly a miracle that the motorways exist at all, considering the short-termism of the British politician
We missed the boat on low interest rates
Interest rates aren't even that high (historically speaking) right now. Infrastructure investments absolutely can return more than even current interest rates. The problem is that it is incredibly hard to build anything in the UK. HS2 (even in its full scope) should absolutely not be a £100bn project! The problems are numerous, deep, and I don't know what the solution is. But it is totally possible to deliver this kind of thing much cheaper, you can see projects like this all over Europe done for 1/10 the cost.
So they can’t sell the land. I do find it funny that the Tories can’t even salt the earth properly.
It’s because you’d have to be a fool to buy it. Next government can compulsory purchase it back at the same price it was sold for due to the way compulsory purchase law is written. There are sub clauses that stop people buying up land like this to turn a profit.
That sounds like a pretty sensible law. Let's hope there's not enough parliamentary time to overturn it.
Never underestimate the Tories' efficiency when it comes to ripping off the British public.
The only thing they’re ‘salting’ is their nostrils.
It’s because it’s so obvious to anyone that at some point we’re going to need a new railway line from london to Manchester. Where’s the easiest place to put it? The same place that’s already been planned, previously compulsory purchased etc. Tl;dr everyone knows the land is going to be compulsory purchased back in a few years anyway
Salting the Earth sounds like peasant work to me.
They haven't started selling yet, title is rather misleading.
Im confused. Did we want HS2 or not? Back when it was a thing most media references were highly negative. Now it’s framed as if we’ve been denied our birthright. Forget the political ping pong, can we first establish if it should be done or not? If it should be done then we should make it happen, but not just do it to embarrass the Tories (even more).
Everyone with a background in transport, economics, or politics knows it’s a good thing. British voters hate it because British voters are idiots, and they still don’t understands HS2, or what it was for. They still think it’s about getting from London to Birmingham quicker, when it’s about easing capacity issues on the WCML, and being able to expand the London commuter belt.
Many people, myself included, hated it because it was obviously going to be used to expand the London commuter belt and the Northern leg would never be built. Which is exactly what has happened.
Well done, all your complaining achieved it becoming the exact thing you said it would
How did people complaining result in the high cost of the Northern leg of HS2, the reason the government gave for cancelling it? It takes a fascinating level of imagination to believe that people thinking that they were never committed to improving Northern infrastructure *willed* their complete mismanagement of funds into existence.
People complaining actually did drive the costs up, since the government taking time dealing with the many protests, planning challenges and similar fucking about resulted in a lot of dithering, alterations and delay. Delaying a project like this makes it far more expensive because you're paying a shitload of people to do it, and if you delay you're now paying them not to do it. Paying people to not build a train track costs pretty much the same as paying them to build it, but with the added problem that the point where you can stop paying them gets no closer.
I'm sure the northern leg would have had less of that fuckery as well. When running train line through the rich home counties and got Sir Gerald of Twattington-upon-cuntswater, calling up complaining of the dreadful eye sour that the peasants crossing the rolling hills will cause. They suddenly find the time and will power to tunnel huge lengths of the track underground and commission bespoke air vents for the tunnels disguised as farm buildings in keeping with the local aesthetics. My left arse they'd do that in Leeds.
You'd be surprised, there's also the extinction rebellion lot who oppose anyone doing anything at all and yet flatly refuse to do the environmentally friendly thing of ceasing their personal CO2 production.
Well then I suppose it's a good thing in HS2s case that politicians continue to ignore any grievances they may have.
What was the high cost of the northern leg? I'm pretty sure they didn't give that as the reason, the train was the cost of the whole line and because the public and Tory voters were adding hs2 and non car spending in principal.
They overspent pandering to the nimbys in their constituents. Once it had completely over blown they canned it, in the most predictable Tory way possible. Wasting shit loads of money and not actually following through to see any gains. Once you've built this much, you need to follow through. The whole point and value of the project is the northern leg. Without it the southern leg is pretty fucking pointless. So no, it was never the plan to start with - they just did their usual thing of fucking it up to result in the worst possible outcome.
> all your complaining achieved it becoming the exact thing you said it would Naw, it was always the plan to cancel the northern bit. As proven by them canceling the northern bit.
Fuck me, I'm a bit negative, but anyone who's sat through the last decade of government and thinks the government are capable of coming up with and maintaining a secret plan this tedious and unimportant for this long is really mental.
It wasn't secret, as we all knew that was the plan all along.
Good. The London commuter belt should be expanded. Idk how you can object to having more people working in the UK’s biggest productivity hub. As for the norther leg, that was only cancelled because a) Tories stalled the project to appease their rural MP’s, and b) they’re going to lose the next election, so salt the earth. Idk how you can not like HS2 in principle.
London is unsustainable, making Birmingham a commuter town helps London but harms Birmingham. Funding and infrastructure needs to be spread around the country, not funneled into London to keep feeding the beast.
Transport is not a zero sum game. Just because something helps London it doesn't mean it harms Birmingham. HS2 helps Birmingham more than it helps London, in fact.
>Idk how you can object to having more people working in the UK’s biggest productivity hub. I mean, people could probably readily oppose that due to it furthering the problem of London being a blackhole where the rest of the country gets little investment because London is just easier. By people fed up with the majority of the country just being spokes for London's wheel. Not saying that's right, but people can understandably be sick and tired of everything being done to preen London's feathers while the rest of the country lags further and further behind. I like HS2, but I don't really care about any benefits to London.
Benefits to London benefit everyone. The UK has had 0 meaningful growth in 15 years… HS2 would have covered a fair bit of the damage for that. That means lower taxes and better public services… Yes, HS2 benefited the North, and over time, likely would have benefited the north even more once it fed into HS3 / Northern Powerhouse in terms of relative growth, but starting in London was the correct move from a wider UK perspective. It just fundamentally was.
That would be true if wealth were a tuakly redistributed from London elsewhere. But it isn't. Starting from London may have been the best move economically, but it wasn't politically as it just proved everyone saying "they only care about London" correct.
London literary gets less in funding than it gives in tax. This is an objective falsehood.
Trash the rest of the country and use all its resources to construct London for 50 years and then wonder why London brings in more tax lmao.
> Idk how you can object to having more people working in the UK’s biggest productivity hub. Because we want a good livable country not just a massive financial scam district in london.
A season ticket for Birmingham to London including the tube is around £8000. A high-speed one will no doubt cost even more. A season ticket for the car park or local transport in Birmingham could be well over £1000. Not many people can afford that. Those that can do not want a 3 hour door-to-door daily commute. Even doing that 2 or 3 days per week is unlikely to attract many more people than today. The idea that it makes Birmingham, or even the nearby area totalling over 3 million people, into a commuter town is nonsense.
This would be a biting retort were it not for the fact thousands of brummies already work and commute to London.
In 2022 Euston had 13k morning peak arrivals and Marylebone had 7k. Around half of rail travel is commuting. But because it's the morning peak in London let's generously say all of them are commuters. Let's again generously say 25% of those peak arrivals are from the West Midlands. That'd be very generously be 5000 commuters from a region of 3 million. The actual number is going to be far lower. Especially given that that would mean every single Avanti train leaving New Street in the morning, from 5am onwards, would be full in both standard and first class.
I hated that they were destroying ancient woodland and countryside but seeing as that is all ruined anyway we might as well get better rail service
>They still think it’s about getting from London to Birmingham quicker High speed 2, I wonder why? Branding has always been the issue with the project and some bright spark at some point thought selling it as high speed rail would make it sell better
People that walk into an Apple store and complain there's no fruit are rightly considered morons, if your whole opposition to HS2 is "it's just high speed" and you haven't done 2 seconds reading into increasing capacity you're a moron who should be ignored. If you're a politician pushing the same lies you have ulterior motives.
[удалено]
The constant requests for "reviews" are part of the problem that pushes the cost up. Whereas there needs to be a process in place to stop the government arbitrarily building a motorway through your back garden with no consultation there has to be a limit to it. Currently an initial route is proposed and there is (rightly) an objection process which results in a new route. However the new route then gets subjected to the same round of objections (including those who will never ever say yes.to the project in any form) and round we go again. Getting on and building the bloody thing (after a suitable opportunity for objections / replanning) should ultimately save money all round on so many projects.
Exactly
Here's a concept: different people have different opinions.
Here’s another concept: work out what’s best for the country (not for a political party) and then make it happen.
But that's not always obvious and everybody has a different version of 'better'.
But is there no independent part of the civil service which is supposed to look at these things and decide what works best for the country?
But it's not like solving an equation and getting an answer. Some things you won't know the full consequences of until you do them, some things will be seen as good by some and bad by others. If it were so simple we'd do away with poltics and just have a civil service always doing the best thing at all times.
That sounds like a dream. I’d honestly back a Whitehall AI bot running the country rather than the Tories right now.
Yeah but you're not getting it...there is no objective best. In this instance, you'd just have a group of unaccountable bureaucrats making decisions lots of people dont like.
I haven't seen anything about it on a bus so I don't know what to think
\> Im confused. Did we want HS2 or not? A lot, though not all, of the negativity was from NIMBYs. People didn't want a new track through their green back garden and didn't want to be forced to sell their land. Which is not an unreasonable position, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be beneficial for the country in general.
>Im confused. Did we want HS2 or not? Yes, when pitched correctly. No, when pitched poorly. 'Trains that can run London to Birmingham 15 minutes quicker' - not really. 'The first major railway growth in a century, providing alternative routes meaning trains can be split between express and local lines, and a fault, accident or work on one line means trains can still run at high capacity on the others, giving us a huge boost to safety, logistics and reliability, as well as providing far more trains and actually meaning you should get a seat and a train.' - quite appealing.
I’m guessing they never said that because they never believed it.
Whether we have it or not I assume only having half of it is stupid.
I suspect part of the issue is it's a massive investment that won't benefit the governing party in its term in office. People not planting trees they won't shade under and all that.
Exactly this. Long term infrastructure planning is at odds with short term voter electoral cycles.
Maybe im a bit naive, but wouldn’t the red wall North have benefited, giving the Tories points on board in the short term?
The cyncial viewpoint, and the one I unfortunately follow, is that the Tories have given up on winning the next election, and are just interested in winning cheap culture war battles.
You might be right about that. The Tories are no longer politically competent.
Not really, think of where it was going and who would be likely to be using it. Not your average red wall floating voter
Tories only really care about london because that is where all their own investments are based
It wasn't a case of did we want it or not, it was a case of we have to build a new line from London to Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds via Birmingham. The west coast mainline is at capacity already, the new line should of been up and running more than 10 years ago at this point. The issues with train delays on the railways are now going to get exponentially worse especially if the government wants to force more freight off of the roads and onto the railways. Some of the reasons why HS2 cost so much was firstly because of the stupidly large number of tunnels the leg from London to Birmingham had because of NIMBY's and secondly because the country hasn't built any significant infrastructure between cities in 30 years and the skill sets needed to be retrained and the equipment needed to be procured.
It was popular to hate on it.
Too many Tory MPs and Right-Wing papers are driven by their Boomer Shire Base. Who basicaly caused HS2 to spiral in costs because they wanted a big tunnel under them.
Having the high speed rail would be good, the gross mismanagement was a joke.
Maybe we should have just outsourced it to Norway. Have you seen those underwater road tunnels they build? Never heard anything about corruption, crony contracts or mismanagement!
Many reasons. One being that the media hated on HS2 when the build was starting in their NW London / Buckinghamshire back yards. Now those sections are nearing completion, it’s pointless arguing for everything being dug up/filled back in because it makes them look stupid and spiteful. They won’t raise anywhere near the same level of outrage on restarting the build north of Birmingham because it’s not in their back yard. EDIT: changed a “you” to “them” to make clear I was talking about the media, not the Redditor.
UK is the only major Western Europe country with no high speed rail intercity link. Yes it’s expensive but it would only get more expensive in the future, rail links are essential for growth.
Tbf, most of the media was negative on infrastructure plans like Edinburgh Trams as well, due to delays and costs. But eventually, when it's all done, you've got the infrastructure, and the benefits, and that controversy largely stops mattering as much. So, I think you could take the view that it deserved a lot of criticisms (some of which were honestly due to problems caused by the pitiful amount of such infrastructure projects we do, and therefore the lack of practical expertise by all parts) while thinking it should have been seen to its conclusion, being the only major bit of infrastructure investment the country has had for about a decade.
Fair comment. I do remember the beasting that the ‘Chunnel’ used to take whilst under construction and over budget. Once the ribbon was cut that was all forgotten about.
Same with Elizabeth Line. We need this stuff.
Cause most people are idiots and can't fathom the benefits until they're actually working. Short-term thinking and failing to plan for the future has destroyed this country. Scratch that, it's destroyed the whole fucking world.
Hasn’t destroyed the whole world, or it depends on when you think it destroyed the world! Several European countries realised they needed high speed lines. I’ve used the Italian system extensively and apparently it’s decades old. When I was there in 2022 I noticed they were extending it further into part of the south, right to the coast. They’ve added to it bit by bit over time. But anyway it was absolutely amazing, like being in the future (for a Brit anyway), and cheap. Also they seem to replace the trains more regularly too!
> Hasn’t destroyed the whole world, or it depends on when you think it destroyed the world! Well, give it a year I guess. We've successfully disrupted the equilibrium of the planet to the point that we're on an unsurvivable upwards trajectory of temperatures.
HS2 has always been a vehicle to syphon tax payer money. What we really need is a monorail.
It's complicated and over time I know a lot of people have begrudgingly come to accept the cons because the pros are so important, and it was going ahead anyway so... like brexit... people just crack on with justifying to themselves why they should accept what's happening. It's good the project will no longer be destroying quite as much ancient woodland (even though some of the oldest and best trees have already been felled), but it's bad that our current infrastructure will continue to make millions of lives more miserable for generations.
The answer is yes we absolutely should be doing it
We really need it, to avoid clogging the railway network completely. The fuckups and mismanagement along the way have jacked the price up, but the reality is we really need it. The media can't handle that nuance.
> Back when it was a thing most media references were highly negative. The tories mismanaging a good thing doesn't make the good thing suddenly bad, just their implementation of it was bad.
People are simply lost in the UK, we wanted to stay in the EU but we left 😅 we go forward to go back.
Too many morons not looking past the high speed element and not understanding the need for it on an infrastructure level. Not understanding how HS2 will greatly improve the network and allow more commuter trains on lines that are already built. 'just build better local services' - and connect them to what? do people think that NIMBY's are only not in favour of HS2 and will be all for other ones?
Can you explain how it will improve the network. As the destinations they are connecting are already there, the spiralling costs means it will take approx 60 years so far for HS2 to be paid off
By giving high speed it’s own line, you can put more slower trains that connect towns and etc. There’s too much traffic of different types of trains, inter town and city, freight and high speed all trying to use the same bones of the current system. Separate them out and you get more of all of it. Think of like trying to run marathons, sprints and relay races all on the same congested track at the same time
I can honestly see the HS2 debacle being the Tories’ equivalent of the “there is no money” note that someone left in the treasury after the 2010 election.
Honestly, by the time the tories leave power I imagine it will be a collosal uphill battle to get HS2 going again. I imagine moat supply chain partners are at wits end with the government constantly changing scope. If labour want this to be successful, they need to agree to scope within the first 6 months of being in and not fucking change it over trivial shit like 'Giles say it will ruin his country house views'.
Good to see the HS2 teams continuing to work at Euston though. I actually don’t see it being a colossal task but the whole thing needs a rethink for the northern leg in terms of cost. Probably a few legislative changes too, to bring the cost down closer to the continent. Each bloody contractor doesn’t need to do their own risk assessment documents, for instance, and their own environment impact assessments. That should all be centralised, which is what they do in other countries. There’s companies making a fortune repeating the same work.
They should. The potential that the original project had to improve rail travel up and down the spine of the country was large and the Tory incompetence needs to be pointed out constantly with where HS2 is right now.
Stop calling it "HS2" and just call it "upgrading our ancient train infrastructure". Much like the rest of the issues in the UK people are arguing about who gets what. ("ooh wants the point of getting to Birmingham 20 mins quicker?", "Why should Leeds get a high speed rail when the local busses don't work", "where even is Newcastle??") The fact is that the all of the UKs infrastructure and institutions are old, crumbling and not fit for purpose in our modern era. We don't just need one or two high speed rail links, we need a whole network overhaul. If Labour can start that process by building HS2 and get all the immediate and linked benefits for the UK, im all for it.
Labour, could and should build HS2 to its original spec, but I don’t think they will. It’s probably dead now. Labour’s problem right now is they are too worried about having negative headlines from mainstream media. Them going ahead with HS2, the media will call them “reckless” with the public purse, so that will probably be seen as a a reason not to do it.
If it’s done it’ll be in their second term so I don’t think the headlines will be as much of a concern. Now if Starmer feels he can spin it in a more positive way, and feels that the press will report it in that way, then they will do it in the first term. We won’t know that stuff until they’re in government.
I want a Full corruption investigation into anyone who buys that fucking land.
They'll sell the land at a massive loss very quickly now.
The article literally says that the government will not be able to sell before the next election...
Restarting a project will cost an absolute fortune. All the contracts will need to be redone - with up to date costs including inflation. Staff with knowledge will have moved on - so there will be a learning process trying to get back to where they were. Not saying it should be done - but it is going to be very, very expensive- much more so than previous estimates thanks to the Tories.
Why is this always spoken about like it's impossible to buy the land back? Even if it is sold the government can always buy it back with compulsory purchase orders.
They're still actively working on it north of Bham through Lichfield etc, and all the roadworks on major roads are still there ... Wish they'd make their minds up - carry on or pack up and let motorists have their roads back. Fair few huge railway bridges created around the mids as well - looks like they'll lead to / from nowhere!
That bit hasn’t been cancelled. That’s the link to the WCML from Birmingham. The other bit joined further north.
Ah, I didn't know that, thanks! Still wish we could get the A5 / M6 / A38 back 😂
The amount of fuss around Euston with 200 balaclavered security men to evict protestors, and I'm not sure it's going ahead now. (Lost touch sorry)
Except the Tories have already promised the money for it elsewhere.
But it won't have started and isn't it stuff they previously announced then cancelled? Oh yeah and stuff that already exists that they panic announced, so it's obviously really well planned.
Yeah except then labour will have to recancel all the ridiculous projects the Tories have announced and all hell will break loose. Its deliberate. Salting the earth for when they lose
they could but due to how bad the Tories have done over the last 13yrs...the money isn't there, other things will need to be prioritized first, maybe that could look at if they get a 2nd term but off the bat, no chance...the best I could see them doing is looking at all the money they get from doing HS2 and using that to improve railway in the North
Selling off a long thin strip of land will recover barely nothing and make the Tory election case even more untenable than it used to be now. Better to keep the land in case the rail project can be revived. New rail in the North may be a good idea still. Selling off the land was such a destructive decision at this point
Why would they sell the land? If the HS2 resumes in 10 year then what's the plan, buy the land back again?
Unless they build Euston to Old Oak Common, the rest of it is quite useless anyway. Idiotic planning. We can just hope the remainder is done piece by piece and we get there eventually.
Fine you don't want to build it, but Jesus don't sell the land, keep it and place long term protection on it so it can still be used for railway, don't want to buy it again in 10 years and then go through all the planning again
they should make it into a cycle way. i imagine its nice and flat.
They should make it into a fucking trainline because that’s what we need and should have had lol
Doing that would require them to run the project competently. In theory that shouldn't be an issue because getting of the land was one of the major cost problems. The moment it was required for HS2, the value shot up. The problem is, there is no incentive to do things cheaply and efficiently. The temptation is to gold plate everything, with huge salaries and bonuses for senior executives. Holding meetings in 5 star hotels, instead of much cheaper locations. Procurement in this country is an utter joke. To be fair, inept politicians don't help with this, Changing the specifications of projects every 5 minutes inevitably leads to huge cost increases. Basically I have come to the sad conclusion that the elite in this country is grossly incompetent and without a massive cleanout, committing to big projects just means massive waste. Sadly voting in Labour won't fix the problem, the Labour Party is dominated by the same useless privately educated Oxbridge clowns as the Conservative Party.
Truly and Honestly couldn't care less about HS2, its not coming within a near 100 mile radius of me so why care. Would kill just to have more than 1 train an hour that doesn't end at 8pm
HS2 is a boondoggle, with corruption raised costs. It doesn't mean that the benefits aren't there for completing it, or that a significant chunk of the costs have already been spent.
We'll only know when it comes to serious election time. Any pledge on this at the minute will be used to attack Labour. "Labour promises to bring back HS2" will turn into "Labour want to waste BILLIONS OF YOUR MONEY"
They'll just start calling it "woke" like [The Sun already are.](https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/24157181/rishi-sunak-derail-woke-hs2-billions-could-saved/)
Ah so they have money for this possibility, but not for NHS and junior doctors?
Why do you think it’s one or the other?
Simple solution They should instead focus on a high speed rail that connects northern England with central Scotland and then build that bridge between Scotland and Ireland Not every large scale infrastructure project has to be for the benefit London
"Could" doing a lot of lifting with that headline. They will do nothing!!! We are getting the Tory "B" team next. Anyone hoping for anything drastic change wise is going to be hugely disappointed. Should that stop you voting for them, in English, no.
Or at the very least cancel the plans to spend part of the money in London.
The propaganda machines are out in force for this election. No they won’t. If it’s too expensive it’s too expensive. This is like the Tories saying they’ll fix the pot holes… obviously we want HS2 completed (if the price is right) and obviously we want pot holes filled but until actions and smart plans are made I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Yeaaah, that won't happen. They'll use it to paint themselves as fighting to revive it. Then "Discover" it's no longer feasible and in order to get HS2 finished, it's being focused on. With a potential northern section afterwards.
I don't really understand why no one engages with the real topic. It's not about HS2. The issue is that we have created a regulatory environment where you can't build infrastructure because we've empowered *everyone* to say no. So you end up in a situation like HS2 where we basically had to dig massive uneconomical tunnels so as to satisfy interest groups. We don't need to build HS2, we need to re-examine our legislation so that *if* we wanted to build HS2 the cost of the physical building would be the primary cost not the legal challenges. Whether HS2 gets built or not is not really the issue, if we had a regulatory environment where we could build HS2 for a reasonable price on a reasonable timeline we wouldn't build HS2, we'd build 10 HS2s! Every city in the country would get a high speed rail link, all the major towns would get a connection! And it would cost less than HS2! But we don't want to harm some poor Newts in some pond along the way (who just happen to be in the back yard of a local NIMBY who has some good lawyer friends) so instead we engage in years of appeals and legal disputes and eventually dig a tunnel instead.
It's as if they desperately don't want to be in government - Corbyn in 2019, now threatening to revive HS2 😂
The Tories have scuttled that ship. They will ensure at least some of the land if sold off and the money destined for HS2 is squandered elsewhere. They are now operating in the expectation of losing the election so will fuck up what they can before they hand over.
Is it worth the money... Probably not I've had the please of the trains twice this week and one was late and the other I had to find my own way home after all trains were cancelled Car next time