Government rail investment

Vanity project/white elephant

Taxpayers cough up £1000 each so a few rich business types in 15 years time can save a few minutes going to London from Birmingham! By then they'll all be "net" working anyway. What about the additional cost of the extra infrastructure and extra congestion to get to the end teminals?
Remember HS1 only runs at third capacity!
West Coast and Chiltern lines could be upgraded NOW at much lower cost and with bigger benefits. 48,000 jobs "sucked" out of South West and 16,000 out of Wales and no change to North South divide!
We need to spend this money on road/rail infrastructure accross the whole country with the extra benefit of evenly spread job creation/economic stimulation.
Investing in HS2 makes no sense, it should be cancelled now and the money redeployed fairly to improve our national infrastructure for the benefit of all.

By tennand on 12 January, 2012, 9:43am

As everybody with a brain has pointed out, there are FAR better ways to decrease the average coomute time in the uk (and thereby the overall productivity) and the national CO2 emissions. For 33 billion (so let's say 50 by the time they've finished) they could put a fully fledged rail-based mass transit system in every major city in the UK, so that the vast number of people who actually live in the place where they work can get there in half the time.

Even if they can get to London from Birmingham in 49 minutes, by the time you've added getting from your home to the station (no mass transit system so let's say half an hour) and from the station to your place of work (London's got one but it's also huge so let's say another half an hour) plus allowance for lateness, you're STILL talking a 2 hour commute each way. Are there really that many people who are going to want to do that every day of the week?

This is a simply enormous sum of money for a project that will benefit virtually nobody in any significant way.

And here's another point. I've hardly seen any comments from the public in support of this daft endeavour - so shouldn't we be rather angry that the government is forcing us to cough up for it against our wills? Is this what we're having all these cuts for?

By Dangerous_Dave on 12 January, 2012, 11:42pm

One of the most depressing things about being a Briton these days is how the moment someone proposes anything there will be a croaking chorus of people against it. The rest of Europe is either planning a high speed rail network or has one. "Pudding Island" just croaks!

By aeolus on 13 January, 2012, 7:40am

Is aeolus actually saying that we should look to Europe as a model for prudent spending and frugality? It's because they've been doing daft things like this with their money that they're in the state they're in.

By Dangerous_Dave on 13 January, 2012, 8:18pm

Aeolus is saying merely that if someone proposes to do anything in this country it tends to meet with a chorus of "No No No No No" regardless of anything. Numbers of (in)action committees will be formed in order to frustrate it. In contrast, across the Channel, protests were made that the Channel Tunnel link (which preceded ours by a shamingly long time) was too far away from certain communities!

Don't get your views from the Daily Flatulence; go over and see for yourself. Kipling once observed "what know they of England that only England know.

By aeolus on 13 January, 2012, 8:49pm