Will HS2 still go ahead?

[SunflowerBlues]

Either way millions of taxpayers money has been spent.

Should it still go ahead or would it be better to cancel it and spend the money elsewhere?

One of the most interesting comments I heard on this a few months back when they were discussing it on R4 Any Questions was that if they were really serious about the levelling up aspect they should have started in the North and worked down / across, not get the Midlands bit done and then lose interest.

Good post. It’s also not take lorries off the road too iirc?

Actually just googled own question

HS2 will take hundreds of thousands of lorries off the roads every year as more freight can travel by rail. Each freight train removes up to 76 lorries from our roads, which currently amounts to 1.5 billion fewer kilometres a year by heavy goods vehicles, or more than seven million lorry journeys

It should go ahead. It’s ridiculous that we have auch poor railways. We’re behind Europe, China, Japan, etc. it’s hardly causing horrendous damage either- it’s a train line. People need to calm down. That’s why we never have any housing or infrastructure built in this country- because we give too much power to nimbys

@CornishGem1975 the whole country needs more east-west lines.

I'm working on it now, it's a shit show.

Absolutely.

Completely agree, East/West would be much more welcomed!

So why is the government Comms so utterly focused on shaving 30mins off the journey to London, what a complete shambles.

I was just thinking that

I have no idea why that’s the lead message

Given green issues I’d go with the millions of lorries

Plus the trains are electric - I think many are not due to age

It's awful isn't it and has destroyed beautiful countryside and people's business. Excess Traffic due to road closures It doesn't stop anywhere

Good point, although also if they were also actually interested in levelling up they’d also have realised (or maybe bothered to ask) that making the north more connected with London won’t benefit the north as much as being better connected from the NW to the NE and in between.

It’d be a much stronger message to lead on wouldn’t it, how bizarre.

I commute to Euston and it has made my life a misery. It's an idiotic project, idiotically run.

Yes I think so

Someone got a backhander to set the railway in motion

I cry every time I drive past it.

They have felled hundreds of trees here. Inadequate research conducted into the wildlife and ecology. It's sad and shocking.

We have no capacity on existing trainlines for passengers or freight - if we're serious about producing and trading more post-Brexit as well as reducing carbon, we need new railway lines.

Infrastructure builds are not nice to watch being done. A new nuclear plant will get similar response

But how do we get lorries off the roads, say or better energy without it?

@Svalberg

exactlyand to stop stupid domestic flights

Many people I've spoken to agree with you, including my dh who is originally from Sheffield.

I don't know enough about it to have a strong opinion, but I have taken the sheffield-manchester stopper line several times (because I sometimes work in Manchester but like to see my in laws who live near sheffield).

It is literally a two-carriage train that more resembles a bus. Goes at a jogging pace. Has benches rather than individual seats. And, I kid you not, one time I took it and I shared a carriage with some live chickens.

Live chickens. On this east-west stopper train up north.

This is how londoners (inc Westminster) see most of the North...! Policy makers just don't see the value in interconnecting the North

I never understood it, all that destruction for a 1/2 hour saving between Birmingham and London occasionally? Disgrace.

Ps just want to reiterate it's not my own view of the North! And I love stopper trains. I used to have to go to rural Wales for work sometimes and I used to stay in a guest house near a station called Coryton. It has one platform serving both directions and you literally flag the train down with your arm, like a bus. So, so delightful, like being in a 19th century novel

Compulsory purchase should be banned

Especially the outrageous travesty whereby the government's valuers decide the market value for you and not your own. And of course, the massive blight that they have put on the property, because of the project, and the fact that you can't sell it to anybody else massively reduces the value that they assign to it.

Most people who haven't been subject to a CPO understand that you have no choice but to sell it, but they don't usually appreciate how much the barrel the government have you over will be exploited. They almost seem to see it as a matter of 'honour' to take the properties for as little as they possibly can.

Hearing the headlines this morning it looks like we'll have our answer within the week.
Which way will they turn?

Phase two will be deferred. That is my bet. Money to be spent on northern circuit before any HS lines north of Birmingham are reconsidered.

I would like it to be completed but my expectation whilst this government is in office is deferral or only part of the bit north of Birmingham.