HS2

[Gfamily]

Has land been bought for phase 2 yet? If so will it be sold off and would that essentially prevent a Labour government from resurrecting the plan, cos compulsory purchasing is expensive?

I believe I read somewhere of £600m spent on advance purchases between B & M.
There's a story here about someone whose house was blighted without being offered a compulsory purchase, and who had to sell at a significantly reduced price.

[dyqik]

Has land been bought for phase 2 yet? If so will it be sold off and would that essentially prevent a Labour government from resurrecting the plan, cos compulsory purchasing is expensive?

Some but not all, and yes.

[El Pollo Diablo]

Some land has been bought for Phase 2a, but not all. Safeguarding is being lifted within weeks, according to this (para 36), and any unneeded land will be sold off next summer. Further land purchases will cease immediately.

If the land sells then another government may find it hard to purchase it back.

[TimW]

I don't really have words to shape around the cold, mute fury that I'm feeling right now.

Yes but look at all those exciting "new" projects we're getting.

As a result of the decision to scrap the extension of HS2, every region will now receive investment in the modes of transport that matter to you most.

South East
Funding to ensure the delivery of road schemes: This includes the A2 at Brenley Corner, a notorious bottleneck on the corridor to Dover.
£290 million to deliver 14 road schemes: Roads across the South East set to be revitalised, among them the A259 between Bognor Regis and Littlehampton.
Access to £2.8 billion to combat potholes: Fixing potholes causing misery for drivers in the South East, South West and East of England
£1 billion fund will be launched for new road schemes
£2 bus fare extended: Until the end of December 2024 instead of rising to £2.50 as planned.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/find ... our-region

[Fishnut]

I don't really have words to shape around the cold, mute fury that I'm feeling right now.

Yes but look at all those exciting "new" projects we're getting.

As a result of the decision to scrap the extension of HS2, every region will now receive investment in the modes of transport that matter to you most.

South East
Funding to ensure the delivery of road schemes: This includes the A2 at Brenley Corner, a notorious bottleneck on the corridor to Dover.
£290 million to deliver 14 road schemes: Roads across the South East set to be revitalised, among them the A259 between Bognor Regis and Littlehampton.
Access to £2.8 billion to combat potholes: Fixing potholes causing misery for drivers in the South East, South West and East of England
£1 billion fund will be launched for new road schemes
£2 bus fare extended: Until the end of December 2024 instead of rising to £2.50 as planned.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/find ... our-region

This is what's frustrated me so much about the environmental groups who've campaigned against HS2. Rail is so much more efficient at transporting people and goods than roads. Rail takes up far less space than roads of equivalent capacity. Anyone who claims to want to protect the environment should support HS2 with all their might, and yet so many environmental groups have complained loudly and continuously about the 'harm' HS2 is doing to the environment. The environmental costs turn out to have been massively inflated and even if they weren't, they are still better than the massive road-building scheme that will have to replace it.

[monkey]

Some land has been bought for Phase 2a, but not all. Safeguarding is being lifted within weeks, according to this (para 36), and any unneeded land will be sold off next summer. Further land purchases will cease immediately.

If the land sells then another government may find it hard to purchase it back.

Next summer might be after The Election at least. Potential there to stop it being sold off. Although I imagine Sunak will hold out as long as possible.

[nekomatic]

Yes but look at all those exciting "new" projects we're getting.

One of the new projects is the Metrolink extension to Manchester Airport, which actually opened in 2014.

[TimW]

I don't really have words to shape around the cold, mute fury that I'm feeling right now.

Yes but look at all those exciting "new" projects we're getting.

As a result of the decision to scrap the extension of HS2, every region will now receive investment in the modes of transport that matter to you most.

South East
Funding to ensure the delivery of road schemes: This includes the A2 at Brenley Corner, a notorious bottleneck on the corridor to Dover.
£290 million to deliver 14 road schemes: Roads across the South East set to be revitalised, among them the A259 between Bognor Regis and Littlehampton.
Access to £2.8 billion to combat potholes: Fixing potholes causing misery for drivers in the South East, South West and East of England
£1 billion fund will be launched for new road schemes
£2 bus fare extended: Until the end of December 2024 instead of rising to £2.50 as planned.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/find ... our-region

The list seems to have disappeared.

[Gfamily]

I don't really have words to shape around the cold, mute fury that I'm feeling right now.

Yes but look at all those exciting "new" projects we're getting.

As a result of the decision to scrap the extension of HS2, every region will now receive investment in the modes of transport that matter to you most.

South East
Funding to ensure the delivery of road schemes: This includes the A2 at Brenley Corner, a notorious bottleneck on the corridor to Dover.
£290 million to deliver 14 road schemes: Roads across the South East set to be revitalised, among them the A259 between Bognor Regis and Littlehampton.
Access to £2.8 billion to combat potholes: Fixing potholes causing misery for drivers in the South East, South West and East of England
£1 billion fund will be launched for new road schemes
£2 bus fare extended: Until the end of December 2024 instead of rising to £2.50 as planned.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/find ... our-region

The list seems to have disappeared.
I don't know if this counts as the list - but might be worth a look.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... work-north

[TimW]

I don't know if this counts as the list - but might be worth a look.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... work-north

That wasn't it, but cheers. Fwiw the list I linked to now exists as separate regional news articles here
https://www.gov.uk/search/news-and-comm ... 405571f627 (updated 4 Oct 2023)

[Brightonian]

David Cameron tweeted earlier today that the HS2 decision was wrong. And now Boris Johnson tweets that he agrees with Cameron: https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status ... 1789066591

[headshot]

How does an PM who hasn’t won a GE, and who promised to complete the Manchester leg in his leadership campaign, got the mandate and legal standing to cancel such an enormous and important project? Shouldn’t this sort of decision be voted on in Parliament?

[Gfamily]

How does an PM who hasn’t won a GE, and who promised to complete the Manchester leg in his leadership campaign, got the mandate and legal standing to cancel such an enormous and important project? Shouldn’t this sort of decision be voted on in Parliament?

Ahem, https://www.gov.uk/government/collectio ... crewe-bill

[El Pollo Diablo]

They can leave the act in place and still not build it. The act only allows construction, it doesn't demand it.

And whilst they'd need anither act to repeal it, selling off the land and removing safeguarding takes no legislation.

What remains of interest is what Labour say they'll do. But they're scared of their own shadows, so f.ck knows

[El Pollo Diablo]

As you might imagine, sleep is a fickle mistress tonight.

[headshot]

Yeah. Who needs sleep?

Another impact is on young people. Frau HS works to support
the engineering faculty at one of Birmingham’s universities. There is a nearby academy school specialising in engineering and many of the university faculty’s students were intending to take jobs with HS2 to work on projects to Manchester and Leeds.

So…f.ck them too, says Rishi.

I’m so angry right now. These c.nts must never be allowed to gain power again.

[Woodchopper]

How does an PM who hasn’t won a GE, and who promised to complete the Manchester leg in his leadership campaign, got the mandate and legal standing to cancel such an enormous and important project? Shouldn’t this sort of decision be voted on in Parliament?

El Pollo has covered the rest, but legally speaking the mandate was won by the party not the individual. Politically he doesn't have a mandate. One of the many reasons why he'll lose the next election.

[IvanV]

I don't really have words to shape around the cold, mute fury that I'm feeling right now.

Yes but look at all those exciting "new" projects we're getting.

As a result of the decision to scrap the extension of HS2, every region will now receive investment in the modes of transport that matter to you most.

South East
Funding to ensure the delivery of road schemes: This includes the A2 at Brenley Corner, a notorious bottleneck on the corridor to Dover.
£290 million to deliver 14 road schemes: Roads across the South East set to be revitalised, among them the A259 between Bognor Regis and Littlehampton.
Access to £2.8 billion to combat potholes: Fixing potholes causing misery for drivers in the South East, South West and East of England
£1 billion fund will be launched for new road schemes
£2 bus fare extended: Until the end of December 2024 instead of rising to £2.50 as planned.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/find ... our-region

The list seems to have disappeared.

To suddenly come up with a long list of things you will fund instead, well they are bound to be things that have already been studied and planned, at least in principle. And probably not an especially coherent programme flung together in moments. So it is an easy criticism that these are all things that were going to happen anyway. Doubtless there will be arguments over what was already funded and when to try and discover how much is really money diverted from HS2, and how much is sleight of hand.

But then there's reality. It's all very well announcing loads of new road schemes, but National Highways is forever falling behind on delivering the program it is already committed to deliver. It was scaled back to delivering about £1bn of schemes a year during the hardest period of Osbourne Austerity, and during 2015-2020 was supposed to upscale from £1.5bn/year at the start to £3bn/year at the end, and failed to achieve that. So it's present 2020-25 program includes quite a lot of stuff left over 15/20, and some things the government originally wanted to build in that period were pushed beyond 25. But it continues to fall behind, even after that scaling back. So trying to add more things that were not already in the pipeline, if NH is the delivery body, well it's seems wishful thinking. And then there's a question over the ability of the construction industry to scale up to deliver all this, and they are going to be wary about it with National Highways persistently procuring less than is in its stated pipeline.

National Highways only looks after motorways and trunk roads (a selection of major A-roads), and so many schemes will be local authority schemes. But they are competing for the same scarce construction resources, and will have similar difficulties driving an increase in output. And construction inflation is something unbelievable, probably due to a combination of Brexit, Covid fall-out, the failure of Carillion, and all this huge amount extra output now being funded that wasn't happening during Osbourne Austerity. They aren't going to massively tool-up and employ people only to see the quantities fail to be procured, or some new financial crisis force another austerity cut-back. They'll scale up a bit and just be happy they have a choice of the work going. The only positive thing to observe is that at least Heathrow 3rd runway isn't going ahead, or there'd be no one left to build anything else.

[TimW]

How does an PM who hasn’t won a GE, and who promised to complete the Manchester leg in his leadership campaign, got the mandate and legal standing to cancel such an enormous and important project? Shouldn’t this sort of decision be voted on in Parliament?

El Pollo has covered the rest, but legally speaking the mandate was won by the party not the individual. Politically he doesn't have a mandate. One of the many reasons why he'll lose the next election.

And he should call the election right now.

[El Pollo Diablo]

Yet another point people have pointed out is that the WCML between Mancs and Brum has not much space in it for more HS2 trains. Putting those trains in, which have to travel at 110mph because they don't tilt, means less capacity on the line. That means less space for freight, which means more freight on the roads. And anyone who has tried to use the M6 near Stoke or around Manchester knows that that isn't good.

[dyqik]

And construction inflation is something unbelievable, probably due to a combination of Brexit, Covid fall-out, the failure of Carillion, and all this huge amount extra output now being funded that wasn't happening during Osbourne Austerity. They aren't going to massively tool-up and employ people only to see the quantities fail to be procured, or some new financial crisis force another austerity cut-back. They'll scale up a bit and just be happy they have a choice of the work going. The only positive thing to observe is that at least Heathrow 3rd runway isn't going ahead, or there'd be no one left to build anything else.

The other construction inflation factor is that any bidder is going to front load the payment schedule even more now, to make sure they cover the bid and early project costs before another government u-turn.

[El Pollo Diablo]

Occasional nuggets of optimism keep creeping into my head. The Government's plan is to lift safeguarding and try to sell off the land by next summer - i.e. before any election. However, the DfT is an absolute pit of chaos in the best of times, which this is not. It is very, very good at taking absolutely f.cking ages to do anything, so there's similarly a very, very good chance that this will not have happened by the next election.

[TimW]

The government has U-turned on plans to restore a mothballed railway line, just 24 hours after it was first announced.

Rishi Sunak announced plans to fund other projects, including the reopening of the Leamside line, after axing the northern leg of HS2 on Wednesday.

However, references to the Leamside line were removed from the government's website later the same day.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-67018745

ETA Yesterday's news in the Northern Echo: https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/ ... ment-says/

[monkey]

Occasional nuggets of optimism keep creeping into my head. The Government's plan is to lift safeguarding and try to sell off the land by next summer - i.e. before any election. However, the DfT is an absolute pit of chaos in the best of times, which this is not. It is very, very good at taking absolutely f.cking ages to do anything, so there's similarly a very, very good chance that this will not have happened by the next election.

And that's why we need to vote Labour, they'll do the bad sh.t more efficiently.


ETA: I'm being general here, not specific to HS2.

[science_fox]

Yes but look at all those exciting "new" projects we're getting.

One of the new projects is the Metrolink extension to Manchester Airport, which actually opened in 2014.

THF there is the '2nd City Crossing' project which was supposed to be built and cut out some of the tedium of getting to the airport. So maybe they meant that.