It's interesting James, that for all your talk of 'green growth', your ambition is so limited and dare I say SE-focused? Does anyone else remember when "HS2" was meant to go all the way to Newcastle?
Building HS2 would of course be great for people in Manchester, but it's a stretch to say that it would generate "levelling up" - how could …
It's interesting James, that for all your talk of 'green growth', your ambition is so limited and dare I say SE-focused? Does anyone else remember when "HS2" was meant to go all the way to Newcastle?
Building HS2 would of course be great for people in Manchester, but it's a stretch to say that it would generate "levelling up" - how could it when it would still take c.2 hours to get from Durham to Manchester? In practical terms, anywhere further north or east than, say, Leeds would not feel any benefit from HS2 in either 'completed' or 'truncated' form.
Which is all to say that I don't buy the argument that HS2 is so nationally vital that it requires deviation from the 'plan' - actually building HS2 as a proper piece of national infrastructure that is felt on the ground to benefit the nation on the other hand...
TL:DR - I am here for let's build three new high-speed lines in the next ten years (circumventing the planning and regulations if needs be). I couldn't really care whether the high-speed line serves only Birmingham or Manchester also. (I am aware that HS2 should really be called "Freight 2" but I would say that a new freight line is not really nationally important except in the abstract).
It's possible I'm misunderstanding you but it seems to me that any 'green growth' strategy of any level of ambition getting off the ground seems less likely in a country that's just cancelled (a good portion of) a high speed rail line into which decades of work has gone, and the government has been allowed to salt the earth so it can never be continued. This is the low hanging fruit! I've always seen the choice between HS2 and 'X other infrastructure project' as a false dichotomy. Finishing HS2 creates conditions under which more can built (both literal off-shoots and things that can be built more readily in countries that have a reputation for *ever finishing anything*); leaving it unfinished and mangled... doesn't.
Sorry SK, I think my earlier post wasn't clear. I agree that in a vacuum HS2 'should' be built (although probably not in the way it has been). My point was that if you think keeping fiscal rules is important (discuss!), then you should break them only for 'Big Bang' things with a clear national interest (national in the sense of benefiting everybody, rather than abstractedly 'in the common good'). I don't think HS2 to Manchester is clearly enough benefits-to-all to justify breaking the rule.
Original HS2 to Scotland, or even Richard Gadsen's proposal above, on the other hand...
If only HS2 had been named the M6 relief line, it would never have been cancelled.
It is the M6 that will suffer now that freight capacity won’t be growing on a crucial section of the West Coast Line. It is the M6 that takes the hit when Manchurian motorists insist on driving to southern destinations because rail is so crowded and unreliable.
One final thought. Even in its crippled state, HS2 will enable faster journeys to Birmingham than to many London boroughs.
Birmingham will become a suburb of London with interesting consequences.
Moving parliament into the Bullring has never looked more attractive. Westminster is far better off becoming a tourist attraction, while a new parliament building can be less confrontational, disabled friendly and welcoming for women.
Is there really no way to link HS1 and HS2? It seems incredibly short sighted that we have little appetite for direct international services to places other than Paris and Amsterdam.
Given that the section of HS2 that is being built will be very underutilised, an international railhead at the Birmingham Airport site would make international services a lot more convenient for a vast area of the country.
No, I said (typed?) it in a hurry. FWIW I think 'fiscal rules' are nothing more than a silly little game so I wouldn't hesitate to break them on anything - but if they set stall by them, you have to have something pretty big to break them, is my view
It's interesting James, that for all your talk of 'green growth', your ambition is so limited and dare I say SE-focused? Does anyone else remember when "HS2" was meant to go all the way to Newcastle?
Building HS2 would of course be great for people in Manchester, but it's a stretch to say that it would generate "levelling up" - how could it when it would still take c.2 hours to get from Durham to Manchester? In practical terms, anywhere further north or east than, say, Leeds would not feel any benefit from HS2 in either 'completed' or 'truncated' form.
Which is all to say that I don't buy the argument that HS2 is so nationally vital that it requires deviation from the 'plan' - actually building HS2 as a proper piece of national infrastructure that is felt on the ground to benefit the nation on the other hand...
TL:DR - I am here for let's build three new high-speed lines in the next ten years (circumventing the planning and regulations if needs be). I couldn't really care whether the high-speed line serves only Birmingham or Manchester also. (I am aware that HS2 should really be called "Freight 2" but I would say that a new freight line is not really nationally important except in the abstract).
It's possible I'm misunderstanding you but it seems to me that any 'green growth' strategy of any level of ambition getting off the ground seems less likely in a country that's just cancelled (a good portion of) a high speed rail line into which decades of work has gone, and the government has been allowed to salt the earth so it can never be continued. This is the low hanging fruit! I've always seen the choice between HS2 and 'X other infrastructure project' as a false dichotomy. Finishing HS2 creates conditions under which more can built (both literal off-shoots and things that can be built more readily in countries that have a reputation for *ever finishing anything*); leaving it unfinished and mangled... doesn't.
Sorry SK, I think my earlier post wasn't clear. I agree that in a vacuum HS2 'should' be built (although probably not in the way it has been). My point was that if you think keeping fiscal rules is important (discuss!), then you should break them only for 'Big Bang' things with a clear national interest (national in the sense of benefiting everybody, rather than abstractedly 'in the common good'). I don't think HS2 to Manchester is clearly enough benefits-to-all to justify breaking the rule.
Original HS2 to Scotland, or even Richard Gadsen's proposal above, on the other hand...
If only HS2 had been named the M6 relief line, it would never have been cancelled.
It is the M6 that will suffer now that freight capacity won’t be growing on a crucial section of the West Coast Line. It is the M6 that takes the hit when Manchurian motorists insist on driving to southern destinations because rail is so crowded and unreliable.
“M6 relief line” is an *incredibly* good way of branding it.
Mancunian, surely? The Manchurian Motorist is a film sequel from the 70s...
😂My mistake
One final thought. Even in its crippled state, HS2 will enable faster journeys to Birmingham than to many London boroughs.
Birmingham will become a suburb of London with interesting consequences.
Moving parliament into the Bullring has never looked more attractive. Westminster is far better off becoming a tourist attraction, while a new parliament building can be less confrontational, disabled friendly and welcoming for women.
Let’s go for it!!
Is there really no way to link HS1 and HS2? It seems incredibly short sighted that we have little appetite for direct international services to places other than Paris and Amsterdam.
Given that the section of HS2 that is being built will be very underutilised, an international railhead at the Birmingham Airport site would make international services a lot more convenient for a vast area of the country.
Ah, I felt like I was getting the wrong of the stick. Fair enough!
No, I said (typed?) it in a hurry. FWIW I think 'fiscal rules' are nothing more than a silly little game so I wouldn't hesitate to break them on anything - but if they set stall by them, you have to have something pretty big to break them, is my view