Minister Philip Hammond accused of desperate HS2 bid
Monday 25th July 2011, 11:29AM BST.
Transport Secretary Philip Hammond was today accused of launching a “desperate” last ditch bid to bolster support for a controversial £32bn high speed rail line through the West Midlands.
The minister has taken the unprecedented step of calling on rail staff to back the scheme, which would bring 250mph trains to Britain and cut the journey time from Birmingham to London by 25 minutes. The Government is proposing a high-speed rail line from London to Birmingham by 2026.
It would have links to Manchester and Leeds by 2033, plus a potential link to Heathrow and two stations would be built in Birmingham. West Midlands transport chiefs say the line, known as HS2, would bring 22,000 jobs and £1.5bn a year of investment.
In a message to railway workers, Mr Hammond said a more “radical and visionary” solution was required to boost capacity on the nation’s gridlocked and overcrowded rail network.
“If we fail to tackle the problem of capacity on major inter-city routes, severe overcrowding on the rail network will inevitably spread, and reliability will deteriorate,” he warned.
Mr Hammond urged staff to respond to the HS2 public consultation which draws to a close this Friday.
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This is a barmy idea. As barmy as the redevelopment of New Street without doing something to increase lines into and out of the station!!!
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New Street station is a disaster as far as intermodal transport is concerned… dark, dingy and completely uninviting for young and old travelling alone, it is in dire need of refurbishment and redesign.
Your argument is like asking the question: Why redevelop the centre of Birmingham without adding more streets/roads? When the result has been clear for all those who visit Birmingham city centre now compared to doing so in the 1980′s.
If you want to keep Britain in the dark ages, so be it. Personally, I know that time only moves in one direction… and we can only hope to keep pace as a nation or be consigned to the status of a glorified Has-been.
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This thing makes me laugh, if you get stopped for doing 75mph on a motorway you get ticked off for putting other peoples lives in danger besides your own yet they are going to put folk on a train that does over 200mph. what happens if that comes off the track? are they just going to get out and walk away????
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“West Midlands transport chiefs say the line, known as HS2, would bring 22,000 jobs and £1.5bn a year of investment”
I have doubts that this is correct. Would love to see the proof.
My opinion – expensive white elephant.
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We can’t afford HS2… End of story. Nowhere in the world does high speed rail actually make money, and even when we’ve paid off the deficit there are more important things to spend our money on. It’s downright immoral to be laying off squaddies, police offices and nurses while splurging £34 billion on a white elephant we don’t need. There is no evidence whatsoever that HS2 would benefit the regions… The main beneficiary, as ever, would be London and big busoiness. We need as many people as possible to respond to the consultation by the Friday deadline and tell the politicians what we think of this madcap plan.
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If making money was the only thing that mattered then: no NHS, no free state education, no parks, woodlands, countryside, Chilterns AONB, etc., etc… HS2 plans are flawed, but there is a real and strong business case for expanding and improving our current rail network to something more befitting a 21st century competitive nation.
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This is total lunacy – apart from the cost, and the pointless re-allocation of much needed funds from other things that this country desperately needs (eg; education, army, police force, NHS) it’s nothing but a GLAMOUR PROJECT to polish the governments fading image.
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This is a good idea if the world and we was not in a depression.
At the moment we don’t need it, want it and we can’t afford it.
Use what money that is available on midwifes, schools, police and the elderly.
MP’s are put there to look after the needs of the population so its about time they got their fingers out and started doing what they were put there to do.
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‘Speculate to accumulate’ isn’t that the private sector mantra? UK Plc needs to invest in its infrastructure far more than it wastes in bureaucratic administration… joblessness leads to crime, poor health, poorer quality housing and disincentives to offspring to learn… look at the lessons we have yet to learn from the 1980′s cull of the mining and steel industries – only now to hear Cameron, Clegg and Millband talk of the need to create an exporting economy!
Aid dependency has never worked in Africa, why should it work in Britain? Get people working and much of the rest takes care of itself.
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