HS2, whats the current status ?

[Wills2]

seveb said:

I thought all routes went west first, so for example, if you live in Peterborough or Stevenage you'd have to go south to KX then cross London to Euston then up to Leeds via Birmingham ?

Cross London from KX to Euston? They are a 5 minute walk apart.

[eltawater]

Wills2 said:

seveb said:

I thought all routes went west first, so for example, if you live in Peterborough or Stevenage you'd have to go south to KX then cross London to Euston then up to Leeds via Birmingham ?

Cross London from KX to Euston? They are a 5 minute walk apart.

Or just take the direct train from Peteborough to Leeds?

[spaximus]

To my mind train travel has a place, but HS2 and the extensions are going to eat cash like no other project. If this is such a sure fire hit why is it not being funded privately?

The Heathrow expansion is privately funded and the public purse will spend around £10 billion on connecting more Public transport to it.

If HS2 is such good value and will make cash you would have thought investors would be all over it.

It is a vanity project first and foremost and the costs will not be contained, it will go ahead as no one will have the guts to stop it.

[alfaman]

abzmike said:

It’s hard to think of any agenda that can find good value in spending £99B on this thing.

Yep - maybe the agenda is “I want a bigger train set to compare to our French neighbours”

my understanding is a lot of the benefits are notional -

eg: time saving on the route is valued at a high opportunity cost for passengers .... which is bks.

These days ppl can do work on trains - so an hour saved just means the work emails and reading get done in the office rather than while sitting on a train .

For a $100bn spend ..... most commercial businesses would expect a pre tax return in the order of 15-20bn PER ANNUM to hit their ROCE and EBITDA/EV targets .

This project delivers nothing like that .... and in addition destroys some really lovely countryside in the Chilterns AONB.

It’s completely crackpot ... 100bn could be much better spent elsewhere

[Rovinghawk]

An observation rather than a justification- money going into construction tends to flow through into the rest of the economy faster than money spent elsewhere. It can be considered an economic stimulus plus it tends to recoup money in taxes more quickly than other spending.

[robinessex]

Rovinghawk said:

An observation rather than a justification- money going into construction tends to flow through into the rest of the economy faster than money spent elsewhere. It can be considered an economic stimulus plus it tends to recoup money in taxes more quickly than other spending.

Except, going by other large projects, it'll all get farmed out to foreign companies

[anonymous-user]

And if it is already at £100bn before a cm of track has been laid, my prediction is that it will eat many more £bns than that before it is completed

[Wills2]

eltawater said:

Wills2 said:

seveb said:

I thought all routes went west first, so for example, if you live in Peterborough or Stevenage you'd have to go south to KX then cross London to Euston then up to Leeds via Birmingham ?

Cross London from KX to Euston? They are a 5 minute walk apart.

Or just take the direct train from Peteborough to Leeds?

That would work!

[Blue62]

I've some limited understanding and experience as I have been involved in a business, on a non exec basis, that is affected by HS2 and we have been offered compensation to move headquarters etc. The discussions have been on going for some years now, each and every deadline has been pushed back and although the proposed site has been cleared and some services installed (at a cost of @£130k) we are no nearer seeing construction of the new facility begin. When you bear in mind that the original move in date was mid 2017 you can understand the frustration and uncertainty such a protracted process has on a business, I can't imagine what it's like for individual and families.

HS2 are a slow and silent bunch, but I do know that EU funding was a key part of the deal and that was contingent upon the train being able to achieve over 249mph, a rather bizarre qualifying criteria, but then it is the EU. My assessment is that Brexit has caused the whole thing to stall and I'm guessing that HS2 is a pawn in the EU's negotiating strategy. I think it will quietly die and be forgotten, but the announcement (if it ever comes) will be some way off, in the meantime those people affected will have to go on living with uncertainty.

[edh]

Rovinghawk said:

An observation rather than a justification- money going into construction tends to flow through into the rest of the economy faster than money spent elsewhere. It can be considered an economic stimulus plus it tends to recoup money in taxes more quickly than other spending.

If you think a £100bn economic stimulus is a good idea, there are much better ways of doing it rather than wasting it on new trains to funnel more people into London.

UK-wide fibre to every house would be a good start.

[Wills2]

Interesting piece in the Sunday Times about how HS2 is shafting people who have had their property taken off them with long waits for compensation driving some people to near bankruptcy some have been waiting for 6 months without any payment.

I'm amazed this is allowed to happen if you get your property seized the least you should expect is prompt payment.

[anonymous-user]

Blue62 said:

HS2 are a slow and silent bunch,

I wonder if there's a reason for that.

[Rovinghawk]

edh said:

If you think a £100bn economic stimulus is a good idea, there are much better ways of doing it rather than wasting it on new trains to funnel more people into London.

UK-wide fibre to every house would be a good start.

Perhaps, but as I said, it's just an observation.

[abzmike]

The government are so consumed by other issues (well one issue) that there will be no appetite to revisit HS2, and the festival of finger pointing and blame that would result. Maybe in about 5 years time, when a single foot of rail has still not been laid there will be a quiet modification to the plan, but that will be after most of the current budget and more have been committed. However, someone in the project needs to come out and explain why cost per mile is 10 times that in other parts of the world - There has to be an explanation for that, and if they can't think of any, they should be told to revise their costings, because it looks like a lot of money is simply vanishing, and money never really vanishes - It all goes somewhere.

[Earthdweller]

Rovinghawk said:

edh said:

If you think a £100bn economic stimulus is a good idea, there are much better ways of doing it rather than wasting it on new trains to funnel more people into London.

UK-wide fibre to every house would be a good start.

Perhaps, but as I said, it's just an observation.

We are in the process of relocating from the U.K. to the west coast of Ireland, my wife works in the south east of the U.K. and will continue to do her job from home in Ireland .. which has super fast broadband .. she will fly back to the U.K. as/when necessary

Her sister, an accountant, works in New York, yet lives in the same area of Ireland

The point of the two above examples is that in this day and age it seems a huge waste of money to be able to reduce the speed at which we can move people into a massively overcrowded area ( London ) when we should be looking at ways to reduce people travelling unnecessarily

If we are going to be spending money on trains then perhaps upgrading the connectivity in the regions would be much better and relieve the demand on people needing to be in London

[Sheepshanks]

rustyuk said:

We know two families in the east midlands who have had the compulsory purchase of their homes completed and have moved out.

I was talking to someone who lives in the Bicester area the other day and he said it's been having quite an effect for a while now, with boarded up property etc. He said they're only buying property extremely close to the line (or in the way) and the compensation they'll pay for noise reduction measures decreases very quickly as you get away from the line.

[Rovinghawk]

Earthdweller said:

it seems a huge waste of money to be able to reduce the speed at which we can move people

One would hope you mean increase

Earthdweller said:

into a massively overcrowded area ( London )

It is also possible to actually leave London- unthinkable to many but it is possible

Earthdweller said:

when we should be looking at ways to reduce people travelling unnecessarily

Some people do have to actually do something- we can't all just tippy-tap on laptops all day.

[alfaman]

Sheepshanks said:

rustyuk said:

We know two families in the east midlands who have had the compulsory purchase of their homes completed and have moved out.

I was talking to someone who lives in the Bicester area the other day and he said it's been having quite an effect for a while now, with boarded up property etc. He said they're only buying property extremely close to the line (or in the way) and the compensation they'll pay for noise reduction measures decreases very quickly as you get away from the line.

Must be having a negative effect on property market within say 1/2 mile to mile or so away ... with noise risk.

I’d consider buying in the Chilterns if / when I return to the UK ..... BUT .... not easy to figure out exactly how bad the noise and other impacts will be .... and maybe even the project gets derailed . Not conducive to punting a chunky sum into a nice house

[CaptainSlow]

alfaman said:

Must be having a negative effect on property market within say 1/2 mile to mile or so away ... with noise risk.

I’d consider buying in the Chilterns if / when I return to the UK ..... BUT .... not easy to figure out exactly how bad the noise and other impacts will be .... and maybe even the project gets derailed . Not conducive to punting a chunky sum into a nice house

I'm about 2.5 miles away from the route. Most of it avoids the larger towns and is green-tunnelled. The pain will be the building disruption.

[Earthdweller]

Rovinghawk said:

Earthdweller said:

it seems a huge waste of money to be able to reduce the speed at which we can move people

One would hope you mean increase

I think I do 😂😂

Earthdweller said:

into a massively overcrowded area ( London )

It is also possible to actually leave London- unthinkable to many but it is possible

I’ve lost count of the number of people who want to get to Birmingham 15 minutes quicker 👍👍

Earthdweller said:

when we should be looking at ways to reduce people travelling unnecessarily

Some people do have to actually do something- we can't all just tippy-tap on laptops all day.

Indeed, but those type of hands on jobs .. Doctors, nurses, builders or chimney sweeps are unlikely the sort to be travelling 150 miles to work everyday .. and living in London 😂😂

Hundreds of thousands probably more could work far more agilely than they currently do how much of the 9-5 is cultural and institutionalised ?

The money would be far better spent building affordable housing for key workers close to where they work rather than providing faster trains

I still hold to what I said in that in this digital and connected world we should be innovative and look to change the way people who don’t need to commute actually work. There are obviously people who need to be in a physical location to actually do their jobs ...many don’t however

And all that money so that you can get to Birmingham 15 minutes quicker than today ...