HS2

[GoofyLuce]

I've just seen a comment on another thread about HS2 being a government vanity project. I completely agree with this statement!I think it's utterly pointless and the money used to create it could have been better spent elsewhere.

Do others agree? AIBU?

At the moment, the economy cannot possibly justify the eye-watering expenditure that is what HS2 will cost.

You mean the public purse, or the Treasury, or the taxpayer? The economy is a different aspect.

Teleconferencing has been viable for over a hundred years. It's long been resisted on the basis that making the effort to travel and present shows you are committed and serious.

Teleworking for office-staff has been resisted by the control-freakery of time-&-motion inspired presenteeism and the clcoking on and off mentality, never mind if the work is actually done and to what standard.

Business travel and commuting are fundamentally anti-environmental and so antisocial activities. We need some political leadership now to knock them on the head.

If it were being built top down, so improving rail in the North of England first, then I’d have less of a problem with it.

Exactly. Invest £106 Billion - nearer £150 Billion by the end - in the North and Midlands to lift those regions in the service and technology sectors then you have rich cities that can start to compare. When you have demonstrable places to commute to you do not need public money to build HSR. Private money will make the investment.

I can see it expanding the London house bubble. If people on London salaries can easily commute from the midlands, they'll buy a bigger property up there, forcing prices up and pricing the people that live and work in those areas out of the market even more.

Improving public transport connectivity between towns, villages and cities in the midlands and the north would be a better use of the money in my opinion.

HS2 is not going thought the Cotswolds.
It is however, going through my county, Warwickshire, destroying large swathes of ancient woodlands on the way.

And ancient medieval villages too - at Wormleighton (?) I believe.

By the time it finally arrives, it will be at least as anachronistic as the new steam locomotives built after WW2 when the rest of Europe was investing in Diesel and Electric. And the fixation with high-capactity trunk routes while ignoring the need for local connectivity shows that Beeching isn't dead. He isn't even lying down.