HS2 GIVEN GO AHEAD

[topchippyles]

Just seen the big HS2 rail project is going ahead,Big big bucks involved 100 billion 

[the village idiot]

£100 billion is an awful lot of money.

 

That's £100,000 every single day for 2700 years!

[Mark J]

It's a huge amount of money for very little tangible gain.
You shouldn't be able to put a price on ancient woodland.
I'd be suprised if there wasn't some resistance to this.
 

[Big J]

What a collasal waste of money. At a cost of £200,000 per metre, it's the most expensive high speed line in the world by a massive margin. This article from the Telegraph uses a lower estimate of £42 billion for the construction cost, and given that it's now expected to cost over £100 billion, you can extrapolate that our HS line is costing 25 times as much per kilometre as in Europe:

 

Revealed: HS2 'abysmal value for money' at 10 times the cost of high-speed rail in Europe

WWW.TELEGRAPH.CO.UK

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HS2 is the most expensive high speed project in existence, according to new analysis undertaken by The Telegraph.

 

And I'd bet my left nut that the £106 billion figure won't stand. They'll get to that point, with the project 50% complete and demand the same again to finish it, throwing good money after bad. 

 

I realise we have compulsory purchases to pay for, but how does it cost 25 times as much? The French can build TGV for a fraction. In fact the new TGV Méditerranée line cost £11630 per metre and includes huge viaducts and tunnels:

 

 

Where exactly does the extra £188370 per metre go on HS2?

Edited February 11, 2020 by Big J

[5 shires]

Love the number crunching and when you break it down like that it makes even worse reading and yes how come in every other country when they build there roads and or railways it costs a fraction of what it does in this country and it takes us 5 times longer to complete which is were the answer lies,the longer a job takes the more it costs..simple maths really and i’am crap at arithmetic but even I know that.

[Peasgood]

Slightly more expensive than elsewhere due to density of population/houses.

The rest goes on newt surveys, badger rehoming and batwatchers.

[Khriss]

Sadly also, if we let the Chinese build this for us, it would be finished by Thursday this week and coffee shops in by Saturday ? K

[Khriss]

( actually got asked to sort a bid out for the veteran tree relocation and hedgerow transplant, I told bid manager not to touch it with a barge pole , guide price was 5million- hilarious !   )

[Guest Gimlet]

It's all about Boris's legacy. He wants to fill the country with people and concrete. Apparaently that will make everyone happier and richer.

Essentially, his idea of "leveling up" the economic divide between the north and London and the south east, is to turn everywhere into London and the south east. Same demographic, same amount of traffic, same density of concrete per square mile. 

I expect he clutches himself with excitement at all the woodlands being leveled. All that growth, all that prosperity, all those votes..

 

Of course, it's worth remembering that HS2 was conceived as the first UK phase of TEN, the Trans European Network, a scheme to link the major cities of EU member states by rail. It was never about boosting prosperity in the north of England. In any case it won't. It'll have  exactly the same effect as the electrification of the south west mainline years ago: it'll extend the London commuter belt into the midlands and the north, with dormitory towns springing up along the route and an accompanying rise in property prices and a surge in urban migrants and second home owners from the capital. Boris loves all that. 

 

HS2 was proposed during the Gordon Brown government, and got underway by Europhiles Osborne, Cameron and May before all the surveys and consultations were complete, in the hope that the money already spent (wasted) would make the project unstoppable. Such has proved to be the case. 

 

Edited February 11, 2020 by Gimlet

[Mark Bolam]

I wouldn’t worry too much lads, it’s not like it will happen in our lifetime.