UKH

Can we finally knock this on the head please? We've rather overspent the £100 billion (hah! Dream on) it was going to cost on more pressing needs.

You're probably right.
If you believe some of the doom mongering going on, there'll be nobody around to use it.

Aparantly workers on HS2 are not only still on site but also classed as key workers... 

And what we really need is some serious computer connectivity so that people don't need to be able to get to and from London 20 minutes faster than before.  You could call it 'National Resilience' - wouldn't that be handy....

Having an infrastructure in place for the future is essential 

they should get on with it fast. 

Why do people still spout this bollocks as the raison d'etre for HS2 ?  HS2 is primarily about increasing capacity and redundancy.

Look at the name! The justification changes regularly as each argument for it is shown to  be bollocks. Speed, capacity economy, environmental, carbon have all been tried and none stack up. 

We are being shown the benefits of not racing round now. I meet people at 6 feet range who are visibly relieved that they don't need to commute 2/3 hours a day by car or train, and are enjoying the peace, quiet and cleaner air. The nightmare would be to go back to how things were.

The name of HS2 is a classic miscalculation by the government.  As with so many things they sell an idea on what they think the masses want.  It was always about increased capacity but the government naively thought they needed to sell it in terms of speed.  By the time people realised the time saving was relatively small (and in fact there is evidence the reduced journey times will be worse as it gives people less time to get focused on their work - there is a minimum best time for train journeys for optimal working) the high speed had stuck.  If the government actually treated the masses with a bit more respect as to their intelligence they might actually have an easier time of selling things.

Student loans is another example of this.  If they'd implemented them properly and called them what they are - a very small increase in marginal tax rate - I think people would be far more accepting.

As an aside, student loans dealt with the problem of dropouts, in a way that a 'graduate tax' wasn't able to.

It’s a capacity issue on the railways to do with moving freight around as well as people. 

I do not want to live in a country with a defunct out of date railway system that harms back to Victorian times.

like 5g etc we need this type of infrastructure .

Agreed. They can't even get there 20 minutes faster as the estimated extra journey to the stations probably eats that time.

IMO it would have been better to spend the money improving existing infrastructure.  I can see why you would want high speed links in Europe but we are a small country and I'm not convinced that knocking minutes off a journey from Birmingham to London benefits a sufficient number of people to justify the expense. If it stops at Birmingham, as now seems likely, it's not doing much to improve conditions further north either.

Al

Agreed. Forget passengers. Many people are proving now how they could work from home if required, especially with better 4g,5g and fibre. 

There needs to be national freight review. More tracks, regional freight terminals where artic trailers come off trains only driving the 50miles or so on roads. 

Capacity is a complete red herring.... we have done this many times before ....opening two extra lines north could be done at less than half the current HS2 cost. The old Nottingham line was even considered as one of these in a costed feasibility study a decade back. Super fast lines need more than twice the dedicated land per track mile and are harder to route around important sites and the trains use way more energy for no important gain in time. Also freight from ports via London to the north is best shifted to investment in northern ports and better rail links to them in cost and environment terms.

The latest legal action has started:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/mar/27/chris-packham-begins-legal-...

In view of the inevitable borrowing required now something has surely got to give, we can't rule another unforeseen event within the timeframe of HS2. We've had 2 events requiring huge borrowing this century already, a third could cripple us.

HS2 should be first on the scrapheap.

....I don't want to live in a country with 33 million and counting, cars driving around.

We need system change.

As an example........blackberries from China, apples from New Zealand could be replaced by produce grown in market gardens on the edge of villages/towns and cities. Straight away, the demand for infrastructure would be reduced, and intrinsically interesting jobs created. People could walk to work. Physical and mental health improved. The collective brain could think of all sorts of small/big changes that would bring these benefits. It would need/involve greater equality which I think is essential to make progress, and to make us all happier. We would end up closing roads and reducing timetables because the need to travel would be reduced. GDP would fall but we could start measuring success in different ways. 

Of course I'm dreaming........

Unfortunately I think you are.  There are now too many people for such a system to work.  I for one however be willing to pay extra for home grown goods but I'm one of the fortunate ones who can afford to.  It's very hard to turn the clock back.

Al

I don't mean I'm dreaming because I don't think it would work, I meant I'm dreaming because there isn't the will to do it. We want to carry on 'as normal'. People have been arguing for years that they will continue to fly to Spain to climb........but suddenly the decision has been taken out of their hands. The same with our food system. People will argue that they will always buy food sourced from anywhere at any environmental cost because its cheap......but soon this option won't be there. Its a huge topic to discuss on here without getting distracted by detail etc. There's a new book out on the future of our food......it says we are very complacent to think the normal service will be resumed in the future, at least for very long.

Why do we expect people to do crap jobs to provide crap food with the NHS/dentists picking up the pieces and the environment being destroyed?  

Not sure where your 33 million is from.  I believe the figure is nearer 65 million. There isn't the will to do it because I don't believe it's a realistic goal.  I do however share your sentiments about these matters and a move in that direction may be necessary as well as desirable.

Al

I just googled 'how many cars are there in the UK' and it says 32.8 million.

I misunderstood your original statement. Sorry.

....I don't want to live in a country with 33 million and counting, cars driving around.