Gandalf the Red wrote:houston4044 wrote:Gandalf the Red wrote: It'll probably also be the end of HS2
good
Why is that good? The country needs it. In fact it should be getting extended to Scotland.
Jobdone wrote:Because no one expects HS2 to get done anywhere near budget, or within schedule, or generally be anything useful other than allowing Londoners to live outside of London and shift their housing/rent prices to those areas.
Like most things it seems poorly thought out, I live near where it is planned to be built and the one thing that sums it up easily for me is this. There is a church with a cemetery nearby which is surrounded by unused public land (council has for decades yet to draw up plans for what to do with it), rather than plan to go under those fields they decide to build under the cemetery necessitating the relocation of the erm,"contents". During public consultations it was pretty much given a non-answer. So rather than spend the money on the project like equipment etc, they are funding to relocate a cemetary, not filling me up with confidence in the project much.
I'm all up for infrastructure spending but a) the benefits don't match the cost, b) the people it is aimed to benefit don't necessarily need it and c) it's all the eggs in one basket.
It's not nimby-ism (I live far enough away that actually it would be of benefit to me/house price etc) but the thing reeks of "rushed poorly thought out vanity project" than something actually substantial. Invest it 5G or improving telecommunications and the like, getting to Birmingham that few minutes quicker isn't going to be a big boon to business' whereas having a top quality communication tools would be in future.