HS2 - High Speed Rail Link. We dont need to spend £160m per mile
Costing over £160m per mile, the proposed HS2 High Speed Rail Link will not only help further bankrupt our country but will slash and scar our countryside, leaving a permanent reminder to our children of politics gone mad and a dynasty of greed of gargantuan proportions.
Joanne Barnes
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1057 comments
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Anonymous
commented
The money for this project would give us ALL a first class Public Transport system which would benefit everybody, not just a few rich business people, and which we could all afford to use. Raping our beautiful countryside to benefit just a few should not be an option.
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James Atkins
commented
These people are dotty - it must be that crazy Osborne and his dinosaur colleagues. It makes so much more sense to improve the rail network incrementally across the country rather than build one very fast line between two cities. And the country can't afford it. We should rebuild this nation modestly and step by step, not with huge folly-some vanity projects.
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Yvonne darcy
commented
Madness totally insane. What are they thinking? Oh that's right they aren't. In 15 yrs time when this rail track may or may not be completed technology will have advanced further and will no doubt need upgrading again for these faster trains and what about in 25 yrs time when they suggest the link to Manchester/ Leeds will be done. Complete insanity when the rail systems need upgrading now and actually the country apparently has no money. If this is so important to business then they should pay for it and this so called government should stop bleeding this country dry and start investing in the people of the country not mad crazy ideas. We need to be voting on this as a nation and we need to stop this lunacy.
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Anonymous
commented
This is not original but it obviously needs repeating. For 35 billion (which is likely to mean 38 or 40 or ?? billion) we get to wait 14 years (which means 16 or 18 or ?? years) for a cut of 30 mins journey time from London to Birmingham. Wow! Does anybody really believe that a saving of 30 minutes on an existing 100 minute journey will really be considered relevant and worth the upheaval, the immeasurable environmental damage and the obscene expense in 2026? This is a vanity project, nothing more.
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C Coyne
commented
If you had £33 Billion of Taxpayers money to spend, would you
a) want to save businessmen a half hour on their travelling time, (but not
before 2024), or
b) find a saner way to encourage real industry and services to the Midlands
and North of England in a shorter timescale, e.g. or
c) perhaps stop cutting the jobs of public service workers so they pay income
tax instead of collecting dole, or
d) something else? -
Anonymous
commented
This is financial rape of taxpayer money and should be treated as an act of treason - as it is diverting funds that could save lives in other more useful projects.
The recipe is always the same :-
- announce a grand project (Millenium Dome, Millenium Stadium, Wembley, Olympics, High speed rail
- give the financial figure make it small to start with (£32billion is certianly not what they have in mind £60 billion is probably more like it)
- publicise a fake "open tender" (knowing in advance that only 2 of your buddy companies will get the contract.
- 5 years into the project announce delays,/difficulties so you can milk the taxpayer for more money
- 8 years into the project announce more delays/difficulties and state that the project costs have doubled
- 2 years before completion announce that the project has been "grossly understimated due to unforseen circumstance - more manoey demanded from the Public purse
- 1 year before completion use the "blame it on the contractors" clause and use it to extract even more money from the taxpayer- Result in most cases - taxpayer unsatisfied - a number of white elephants produced.
This will only stop once the Public wake up to the fact that we are being conned and put a stop to it!
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Anonymous
commented
Some of the countryside the rail will cut through is near where I grew up in Warwickshire. IT's beautiful countryside and I don't want to see it ruined by an over-expensive rail link which will probably be used as an excuse by rail companies to raise their ticket prices even more.
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Anonymous
commented
The money could be better spent elsewhere - perhaps helping reduce the cost of train fares. SSIs and AONBs are not protection enough for the countryside unfortunately.
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Pat Barnes
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I agree with the comments below - to spend such a vast sum of money on HS2 is obscene, made even more so when you consider the plethera of cuts being made at a national and local level to the extent that some essential services may never be recovered. £160 million per mile??? This could have offset the costs of keeping at least some of the services such as Community Hospitals, Nursing Homes, Youth Clubs, Charities, Libraries etc. etc. etc. still providing their service. Shame on you...
Then there is the issue of not giving a damn about our countryside...how foolhardy and reckless can you be? Belittling the designations of SSSis and National Nature Reserves and running roughshod through OUR landscapes and for what..?? Nine minutes (or whatever) off the length of a journey to Fat Cat London. Haven't you heard? Britain is the poor man of Europe when it comes to nature protection and forest cover. If you didn't know this, then you shouldn't be in a position to squander our beautiful land. If you did know this, then there is something wrong in the state...
Shame on you again... -
Debbie Gent
commented
Stop HS2!!!
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Adrian
commented
Even thinking about spending this amount of our money on a project that will benefit a tiny number of business men while ruining vast swathes of the countryside show how out of touch the government is.
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Ginni
commented
Why do so many of us insist of burning our beautiful countryside?
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Nicholas Batty
commented
HS2 is an ill conceived vanity project, a Victorian solution to a non-existant problem.
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A Crow
commented
This government must continue to listen to the people who live in this country and not just work here or who want to plunder our green and pleasant land. The SSSI, scheduled monuments, ANOBs, listed buidlings and ancient woodlands must be protected from those whose interests are purely the money in their bank accounts and the power that they want to have over our lives.
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A Bankes
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StopHS2 campaigners have been successful in pursuading Parliament to hold a debate on the HS2 project. It will take place on Thursday 13th October. Please can you now ask your local MP to speak on your behalf in the debate. The original Stop Hs2 petition has reached over 100,00 signatures via online and paper votes, the Govt interestingly now have their own new online petition. STOP HS2 petition has reached over 100k signatures via online and paper votes. Please add your name also to this new Govt petition via http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/353
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Joan
commented
Birmingham already has a Birmingham to London train service.
The proposers of HS2 are not being open when they say it would be to the advantage of the Midlands. It won't -
Michele
commented
Pleae wake up folks - not only will the HS2 from London to Birmingham cost us 1000-1700,-- (per household) extra on tax a year, it doesnt stop anywhere along the route and all the laws to protect areas of outstanding beauty, sites of special scientific interest, ancient woodlands, natural habitats etc. would be abolished! Think of the long-term effect; that would then give the Government the right to build anything anywhere!! Is that what we really want? Wouldnt it be better to invest money in the existing rails?
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Lucinda Cashin
commented
This is the biggest waste of taxpayer's hard earned money that has ever been proposed. It is not cost effective for the supposed savings in time it will bring. The money should be spent on increasing the police numbers, and public services such as the NHS. There are too many public services crying out for help with funding, and that would be money much better spent. As a taxpayer, I want to have a choice. I choose to not support HS2.
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niki henderson
commented
I work for the NHS in Spinal injury and we are always battling to get patients what they need from an ever decreasing budget. How can our govenrment think that spending £33 billion on a railway we don't need is right????
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Anonymous
commented
Stop this development which does not serve the communities it passes through and if it goes ahead will destroy vast tracks of countryside and wildlife.
