HS2 - A COMPLETE WASTE OF MONEY!

HS2 is the High Speed 2 railway to Birmingham from London. It is going to cost an estimated £32 billion and possibly start running a service in 2026. The idea behind this project was Labour peer Lord Adonis who first proposed it.

We are told it will knock 30 minutes off the time it takes to travel from London to Birmingham. We are also told it will bring massive economic benefits to the UK; commercial lobbyists have claimed it will be worth £55 billion to business, I don't know where they get their figures from. You would think if big business thinks it is such a good idea they would be investing in it themselves, but of course not, every penny will come from British tax payers.

You might think that by what I am saying that I am against investment in our infrastructure and particularly our railways, but I am not. It is just I cannot see the benefits of this 'vanity project'. On top of the fact it is going to cost a huge amount of money, it is also going to cut its way through some of the most beautiful parts of England's countryside. And this really bothers me.

The government states it will cut 30 minutes off journey times, is this strictly true? It is if you take the figure from the longest journey times, but when you factor in the quickest rail journey between London and Birmingham, you can knock ten minutes off that figure. Then add to this the time it will take to get to the centre of Birmingham from the new station they are going to build outside the centre. You can then take at least another ten minutes off the 30 minutes supposed saving. So there you have a possible saving of ten minutes.

The Whitehall evaluation team looked at the benefit/cost ratio of this project last year. They came to the conclusion that for every £6 spent, only £1 would be gained in economic terms. To be remotely commercial it will have to charge very high fares - projected to rise at 27 per cent above inflation.

Lord Adonis stated it will bring '...low cost mass market, high speed transportation'. It will quite obviously not bring high speed travel to the poor masses, as the cost of this project is going to have to be recouped. So the only people who will be able to afford to travel on this train will be the wealthy.

The government has said this project is going to cost £32 billion, but as you can imagine with most government projects it will cost a lot more. Already the government has allocated £750 million even before the decision has been made for the project to go ahead. Governments are very good at wasting our money, the Olympics is a good example. The initial estimate was for £2.4 billion, that figure has now grown to over £9 billion. The Labour governments decision to invest in an NHS super computer in which to store and access every persons medical details ended up costing £21 billion and was eventually abandoned. The Millennium dome cost millions and was doomed from the outset. The governments decision to build two aircraft carriers has already cost hundred of millions and these ships are not expected to come into service for at least a decade.

The idea behind the HS2 sounds good, but does not stand up to simple economic scrutiny, and the question has to be asked why is the government spending so much money at a time when money is very tight? Last week the chairman of the committee on standards in public life, Sir Christopher Kelly, warned that 'preferential access to decision makers by powerful interests was damaging respect for Whitehall'. This is not confined to one particular area, but HS2 is probably the most expensive.

I believe this HS2 project is going to bring no benefit to the UK. It is going to destroy some of England's most beautiful countryside, and before anyone accuses me of being a NIMBY (not in my back yard), I do not live anywhere near the proposed railway. I love the countryside, and Britain is a very crowded country and I want to see what is left our this beautiful country protected.

I do not see that this has to happen. Our infrastructure, both road and rail is under immense strain, and this railway is going to do very little to alleviate this. Surely what would make sense is to invest in what we already have. Britain has some of the highest rail fares in Europe and is ten times more expensive than the European average. We have a road system which is gradually grinding to a halt, with ever more people coming to this small island, this is just going to get worse. With expected population growth to continue at an astronomical rate surely it would make sense to reduce rail prices, invest in improving our under resourced rail network and relay some of the old lines that were ripped up in the 1960's.

The HS2 is going to bring benefits to very few people, the population of this country is spread out throughout this island, and out of a working population how many people travel between Birmingham and London on a regular basis? Is it really going to bring that many benefits to UK plc?

I don't want to always pour scorn on the government, but I can only see this going the way of so many projects. I have written before about how our government ministers do not have a clue, and unfortunately it is these people who make the decisions. A politician who has very little knowledge about his department and is here today and gone tomorrow can be baffled by professionals. They can be told this will benefit their career, give them a legacy, make them look good. They can be told all sorts of things, but they may have very little understanding of the impact their decision will have upon the people they are paid to serve.

David Cameron and his ministers have made a decision that in reality will only benefit a few business men and wealthy people, because that is all who is going to be able afford to travel on this train. It is going to cost at least £32 billion and bring untold misery to the many thousands who live on the proposed route, it is going to carve a knife through some of the most beautiful countryside in England. All this for a supposed saving of thirty minutes travel time (which in the likelihood will probably only be about 15 minutes). I think that sums up the idiocy of those in charge!!