HS2 - Government proposals, alternative routes and general discussion

[whole diary]

[ellendune]

So HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) is cancelled and is to be replaced by a so called new policy which turns out to be a series of unspecified projects that have not been thought out and have been put forward without consultation of relevant bodies (Network Rail for example).  It seems to me to be irrational to sell off the land and release the safeguarding of the route (blocking any resumption of the project) until the new policy and replacement programme of works has been properly assessed and consulted on to ensure that at it meets the policy objectives of the original proposal (e.g. capacity on the WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line), ECML^▸ (East Coast Main Line) and MML^» (Midland Main Line. - about)) at least to the extent that this is necessary under new conditions.

Furthermore, descoping Euston to 6 platforms (?) would effectively make the section to Birmingham hamstrung as its full capacity could never be realised.  That too seems irrational unless passive provision is made to increase the number of platforms later.   

[Electric train]

So HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) is cancelled and is to be replaced by a so called new policy which turns out to be a series of unspecified projects that have not been thought out and have been put forward without consultation of relevant bodies (Network Rail for example).  It seems to me to be irrational to sell off the land and release the safeguarding of the route (blocking any resumption of the project) until the new policy and replacement programme of works has been properly assessed and consulted on to ensure that at it meets the policy objectives of the original proposal (e.g. capacity on the WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line), ECML^▸ (East Coast Main Line) and MML^» (Midland Main Line. - about)) at least to the extent that this is necessary under new conditions.

Furthermore, descoping Euston to 6 platforms (?) would effectively make the section to Birmingham hamstrung as its full capacity could never be realised.  That too seems irrational unless passive provision is made to increase the number of platforms later.   

The decision to scrap parts HS2 is not based on financial sense, common sense or anything rational ..................... it is purely based on political ideology and perhaps recklessly to destabilise the railways in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) so they win the next GE they can implement the full sell off of the UK rail network, something they were not able to do in the 1990's, this time it will be sink or swim, the buyers, mainly asset strippers buying to sell of the land

[ChrisB]

Unfortunately, there are many very rational people who are quite happy that this decision has been made, so judicial review is highly unlikely.

[ellendune]

The other area for possible judicial review is contradiction with net zero policy and the climate change act. 

[TaplowGreen]

Perhaps someone should start a petition?

[IndustryInsider]

Perhaps someone should start a petition?

Update on two that have been started:

32,600 signees:  https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/halt-the-sale-of-all-land-purchased-for-hs2

1600 signees:  https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/648150

[ChrisB]

Those are simply votes against, rather than for a judicial review unfortunately

[Mark A]

Overview from the Hansard Society. "HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) fiasco: What does it mean for Parliament?"

Mark

https://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/blog/hs2-fiasco-what-does-it-mean-for-parliament

[TaplowGreen]

Hmmmm.....I wonder what (if anything) will happen following this and the Sunday Times report.....

https://youtu.be/HZWILyAh168?si=VLIGLlKbPjkVpWNz


(No prizes for shooting the messenger by the way!)

[TonyK]

According to the Institute for Government;

"A decision can be overturned on the ground of irrationality if it is so unreasonable that no reasonable person, acting reasonably, could have made it. This is a very high bar to get over, and it is rare for the courts to grant judicial review on this basis".

That sounds reasonable.

Hmmmm.....I wonder what (if anything) will happen following this and the Sunday Times report.....

https://youtu.be/HZWILyAh168?si=VLIGLlKbPjkVpWNz


(No prizes for shooting the messenger by the way!)

I saw Nigel Farage, and switched off. I read the story in the Sunday Times, and it is worrying. Whether it is fraud, a desperate civil engineering sector trying to keep heads above water, or woeful government incompetence, I don't know. BUT Government has been overseeing this project for thirteen years, and has fussed and meddled throughout to please the occasional backbencher, and the same government has had monthly updates on expenditure since before work began. Surely at least some of the six secretaries of state and 18 under-secretaries who have had control of HS2should have read them?

[TaplowGreen]

According to the Institute for Government;

"A decision can be overturned on the ground of irrationality if it is so unreasonable that no reasonable person, acting reasonably, could have made it. This is a very high bar to get over, and it is rare for the courts to grant judicial review on this basis".

That sounds reasonable.

Hmmmm.....I wonder what (if anything) will happen following this and the Sunday Times report.....

https://youtu.be/HZWILyAh168?si=VLIGLlKbPjkVpWNz


(No prizes for shooting the messenger by the way!)

I saw Nigel Farage, and switched off. I read the story in the Sunday Times, and it is worrying. Whether it is fraud, a desperate civil engineering sector trying to keep heads above water, or woeful government incompetence, I don't know. BUT Government has been overseeing this project for thirteen years, and has fussed and meddled throughout to please the occasional backbencher, and the same government has had monthly updates on expenditure since before work began. Surely at least some of the six secretaries of state and 18 under-secretaries who have had control of HS2should have read them?

As I said, no prizes for shooting the messenger, but hopes weren't high!

I am no fan of Farage but if you had listened to Andrew Bruce, rather than immediately switching off you may have learned and understood something about what actually happened from someone who was close to the project at a reasonably senior level on a day to day basis as I did, and as you say it is deeply worrying.

There's a bit more nuance involved than simply blaming the Government for everything, easy option though that may be.

[Mark A]

Commons transport committee on the Government's "Changes" to HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)): Wednesday November 8th.

Mark

https://committees.parliament.uk/event/19479/formal-meeting-oral-evidence-session/

[JayMac]

Opinion piece from Simon Jenkins in The Guardian:

Every week brings a fresh HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) scandal. It’s time to shut it down – all of it

In an astonishing white paper, Rishi Sunak rips into the project he once lavishly funded. But he doesn’t go far enough

The most astonishing government document I have ever read sits on my desk. It is called Network North: Transforming British Transport and it purports to explain why Rishi Sunak cancelled half the HS2 project last month. In fact, it does not explain anything. It is an angry rant, tearing the entire HS2 project to bits: ridiculing, smashing and intellectually humiliating it.

The white paper is apparently an announcement of new transport projects in the north and elsewhere, perhaps meriting a transport department press release. Yet it is presented as from Downing Street with all the pomp of a peace plan for Ukraine. It rubbishes every argument made for HS2 over a decade, in identical terms to those made by its critics. It does so, most unusually for a government paper, under a picture of Rishi Sunak, with his personal foreword. But who was the proud parent of this £100bn monster mistake? None other than the man Sunak has just dragged out of retirement to be his foreign secretary, David Cameron. Is this political sadism?

Every part of HS2 is now trashed by Sunak. This includes its stress on speed, its cost, its governance and its value for money. Successive ministers and chancellors were cajoled into backing it by powerful lobbying and the thesis that it was “too big to cancel”. Critics of the scheme were deluged with complaints. Two senior officials even visited the Guardian offices after an article I wrote. Everything they said was rubbish, which is what Sunak’s document now admits.

managers [at HS2 Ltd] instructed staff to keep cost estimates artificially low”, based on testimony from whistleblowers who were reportedly sacked after raising concerns. HS2’s fraud unit is investigating these allegations and the company denies wrongdoing.

Where were the officials under Sunak’s command? They were prancing up and down tunnels being photographed in hard hats. Now, after years of extravagance, Sunak can blandly state as a fact that, of all the north’s transport needs, the one “that least needs fixing [is a] fast train to the capital … [where] almost half the economic benefits go to London and the south-east.” The enormous sums involved “could be far better spent”. Quite so.

The only thing in this paper I cannot understand is why, after so demolishing HS2 as a concept, Sunak did not stop it and give the huge savings to the NHS. Just last month, it was reported that the cost of the surviving line to Birmingham had risen by a fifth in just four months to £68bn in today’s prices. This is inexcusable. Even the transport department’s top civil servant, Bernadette Kelly, admitted to a House of Commons committee around the same time that it “would represent poor value for money”. Why go on, when you have made such a convincing case for stopping? The line is three years under way, but you could save a further eight mind-blowing years to completion. This would vastly benefit projects like those already announced for elsewhere.

The answer can only be lack of political guts. That is indicated by Sunak’s additional decision that the new Euston station – now a huge building site – will still go ahead. He says he can shrink its costs by an implausible £6.5bn and get the private sector to pay for the rest. He cited Battersea power station, the most over-developed site in London, or Canary Wharf. I cannot imagine anyone would seriously want to build another Canary Wharf looming over Bloomsbury and Regent’s Park. There cannot be anywhere in Britain less in need of public investment.

Alexander Jan, an economist and expert on rail property formerly with Arup, told the FT this was an “absurd proposition”. Battersea delivered barely £1bn in private finance. To proceed with HS2 free of public cost would need “the equivalent of 21 Canary Wharf towers – plus 80,000 homes – to come up with that sort of money”. On present plans, Sunak would be lucky to see £500m. This was launched as the greatest ever boost to the economy of the north. For it to end with a second Canary Wharf in central London would be an outrage.

If the existing phase of HS2 proceeds it should clearly stop at the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common. This is intended to be the Canary Wharf of west London. HS2 would at least give a boost where one is welcome. Labour’s Keir Starmer, who has been pathetically weak on HS2, should immediately announce that, if he will not do the right thing and cancel HS2, he will at least stop it at Old Oak Common. It would be the one sensible decision in this whole fiasco.

One error in that piece. David Cameron was not the architect of HS2. The ball started rolling in early 2009 during the premiership of Gordon Brown. HS2 Ltd was incorporated on 14th January 2009. A route study and financial report was published by HS2 Ltd in December 2009. A command paper was published by the Labour government in March 2010. All before David Cameron became Prime Minster of the Tory/LibDem coalition in May 2010.

[Noggin]

It seems a very bizarre angle to take on the white paper, especially from a Guardian journalist.

Of course it's entirely reasonable to question how realistic the proposals are, and indeed whether they are intended to go forward, or some weird veneer to cover for the dismantling of HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) north of Birmingham.

But taken at face value, it very rightly points out that most cities outside London are held back by decent transport infrastructure and proposes to spend an enormous amount of public money to right that, not primarily with roads (as one might expect from a Conservative administration), but the most amazing goodie bag of projects.

It's stuff from the wildest dreams of most rail enthusiasts (and metro mayors) - there's electrification galore, a high-speed Network North, a seven-line regional metro for West Yorkshire and even a bit of Woodhead line reopening (not the full tunnel, but as with Okehampton, the true believers will consider it a good start). And perhaps equally out of character for the Conservatives, it delegates delivery to the devolved regions, with words to the effect of "and if you think you can do better with the money, we're happy to be flexible". Yes, there's road, but there's also £2 busses, which somewhat neutralises the arguments that it's all just for the rail commuting urban middle classes, or the trope that if you ride the bus as an adult you're somehow a failure in life.

Now I've got to say that I'll believe its happening when I see spades in the ground, but in the interim, it must be incredibly frustrating for the Labour Party because not only did they not come up with it themselves, but in the event they win the next election, they will really have no choice but to pony up and crack on with it or face heckles from not only the Conservatives, but Plaid in Wales and their own metro mayors.

And the kicker is (whisper it quietly), HS2 still gets built to Birmingham, so Curzon Street, Interchange and Old Oak Common still get built to plan, but now with DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) oversight, so again, the next Parliament will see the Government have to actually get it built and cope with the inevitable hiccups and overspend, agree a solution for Euston, probably have to agree to Crossrail 2 to avoid meltdown of the Tube on opening day, but it probably won't be open until the Parliament beyond.

Which (along with other legislation like the new rules on high-rise buildings), leaves me thinking that the bulk of current Conservative policy is designed to tie such journalists up in theological knots (never mind a future Labour Government).

[Red Squirrel]

I thought that column was a bit eccentric, even for Jenkins. For context, he’s the columnist who, back in 2010, argued that the entire defence budget - ‘all £45 billion of it’ - should be cut. I suspect his views on rail will age just as well.