We need High speed Rail, but Is HS2 really Needed?

[B&I]

If you remove the top 15% of each range, as the risk of that happening it's fairly small due you end up with a range of -£25 million to +£90 million.

In fact to get to a range of £0 to +£50million you are in the middle 40% (you've lost the top and bottom 30%).

To me that would suggest that the level of risk of it being harmful (to any extent) to Liverpool is low and of significant harm (given its something like a maximum of -0.7% of the economy) is very low.

My reading of the figures is that it is a low output change is the one which results in the +£115 million.

And if you ignore those statistica.completely, your problem vanishes.

These are figures produced by HS2's own consultants. Why are all the HS2 fans so keen to undermine them ?

 

[B&I]

Connectivity to London or Birmingham is important but it's not the only factor. All the people still living in and around Liverpool and Merseyside will still be there, with demand for employment as well as goods & services. There's limited space in the UK (even outside London & Southeast) and with a growing population I just find it hard to believe that economic activity or population will decrease by any significant in Liverpool.

Once again, I'm afraid I'll have to place more weight on research by HS2's own consultants than your gut instinct. If your reasoning was correct, no.large centre of population could evee suffer economic contraction

 

[Ianno87]

So, if you don't think that the extra cost of a high speed line to Liverpool would outweigh the economic benefits it would bring, why did you bother introducing it as a concept ?

I was going off the statement that:

A quick read suggests that Liverpool could have a economic impact of between -£50 billion and +£115 billion.

In all probabilty, the HS2 scheme as currently planned will benefit Liverpool.Only in the worst economic circumstances would it not.

Do you think 'Merseysiders', whatever they are, would be dancing in the streets in favour of HS2, if you told them that HS2's own consultants have pointed out that their local economy is at risk of shrinkage if HS2 goes ahead as planned ?

Merseysiders = Residents and businesses of Merseyside.

The entire UK economy is always at "risk" from a major multi-billion pound infrastructure investment. Extremely low risk of Economic circumstances of the economy turnining so sour that the benefit of the investment is not realised. Economic forecasts are usually done on ranges of good-to-bad economic circumstances to show that, in the majority of likely economic circumstances, the investment will be a good one.

If you remove the top 15% of each range, as the risk of that happening it's fairly small due you end up with a range of -£25 million to +£90 million.

In fact to get to a range of £0 to +£50million you are in the middle 40% (you've lost the top and bottom 30%).

To me that would suggest that the level of risk of it being harmful (to any extent) to Liverpool is low and of significant harm (given its something like a maximum of -0.7% of the economy) is very low.

My reading of the figures is that it is a low output change is the one which results in the +£115 million.

Put very well, thank you.

 

[si404]

Hang on, the link would only be 20 miles long?

I'm citing the '20 Miles More' lobbying group for a captive HS2 spur's marketing. It's literally the name of their group!

Of course, even the more sensible members seem to now be arguing for 20 Miles Less: terminating at Crewe so that Manchester doesn't gain anything Liverpool doesn't. And there were always some who were '20 miles more or 200 miles less' - that HS2 is not worth building unless it serves Liverpool with a captive spur.

The Sheffield-Leeds rivalry seems a lot nicer. Sheffield lobbied to be Liverpool - slower journey time than their rival city, and using classic tracks.

Southampton ... isn't a direct competitor to Liverpool.

Tell that to the Merseyside Maritime Museum! They have almost as much griping about Southampton taking the liner trade at the turn of last century as they do about the Ship Canal giving sea access for Manchester.

 

[The Ham]

And if you ignore those statistica.completely, your problem vanishes.

These are figures produced by HS2's own consultants. Why are all the HS2 fans so keen to undermine them ?

I'm not trying to undermine them, I'm explaining that their figures show that there's a range and that range also shows that there's a good chance that there would be economic benefits to Liverpool. In that assuming that the figures are straight line between those points there's a 1/3(loss) Vs 2/3 (benefit) split.

On that basis there's more of a chance that Liverpool will benefit than it will loose out.

If it does loose out the maximum impact will be 0.7% of the economy. If that's direct relationship to jobs 2 people would be out of work for every 300 people. However conversely the could be 5 extra jobs for every 300 people.

 

[The Ham]

Tell that to the Merseyside Maritime Museum! They have almost as much griping about Southampton taking the liner trade at the turn of last century as they do about the Ship Canal giving sea access for Manchester.

I would argue that the port is a direct competitor however the wider city isn't.

 

[B&I]

I'm not trying to undermine them, I'm explaining that their figures show that there's a range and that range also shows that there's a good chance that there would be economic benefits to Liverpool. In that assuming that the figures are straight line between those points there's a 1/3(loss) Vs 2/3 (benefit) split.

On that basis there's more of a chance that Liverpool will benefit than it will loose out.

If it does loose out the maximum impact will be 0.7% of the economy. If that's direct relationship to jobs 2 people would be out of work for every 300 people. However conversely the could be 5 extra jobs for every 300 people.

I was going off the statement that:



In all probabilty, the HS2 scheme as currently planned will benefit Liverpool.Only in the worst economic circumstances would it not.




Merseysiders = Residents and businesses of Merseyside.

The entire UK economy is always at "risk" from a major multi-billion pound infrastructure investment. Extremely low risk of Economic circumstances of the economy turnining so sour that the benefit of the investment is not realised. Economic forecasts are usually done on ranges of good-to-bad economic circumstances to show that, in the majority of likely economic circumstances, the investment will be a good one.




Put very well, thank you.

Why is Liverpool the only metropolitan area 'served' by HS2 which is being expected to put up with the risk of substantial economic detriment ?

 

[NSEFAN]

Why is Liverpool the only metropolitan area 'served' by HS2 which is being expected to put up with the risk of substantial economic detriment ?

Is it the only area which stands to lose out? If the argument is "having a worse service compared to another city means businesses and people will leave, even if it's better than before" then surely this also applies to every city which HS2 doesn't serve?

 

[si404]

Why is Liverpool the only metropolitan area 'served' by HS2 which is being expected to put up with the risk of substantial economic detriment ?

Because it's the only metropolitan area where a sizeable number of people from it have spent the last 10 years saying that HS2 somehow doesn't serve Liverpool and that the scheme would be a disaster for the city...

Sheffield lobbied to get the Liverpool treatment - slower than rival city Leeds, using classic lines, etc. During their process, they never said that Meadowhall didn't serve their city, or that HS2 going to Meadowhall would be a disaster for the city - just that they would like to increase the benefit for the city.

 

[quantinghome]

As a matter of record, "It's a bit too late," doesn't quite work with me. I've been against HS2 from day one. Have never, will never, support it, and will not use a HS2 train or track. I've been very open about my opposition from the very, very start.

To thine own self be true. And I salute you for it. However it does make discussion kinda pointless if there's no possibility of conceding the merit of opposing arguments, but that's your choice and you're welcome to it.

I read a (possibly apocryphal) story about a republican who refused to use the Jubilee line due to its name. I grant you have more significant reasons to oppose HS2 - even if I happen to disagree with them.

 

[The Ham]

Why is Liverpool the only metropolitan area 'served' by HS2 which is being expected to put up with the risk of substantial economic detriment ?

It's not, as it's not substantial. As it's a maximum of -0.7% of the economy.

Also my reading is it will only loose out if HS2 does very well. As such if the argument for not building HS2 is based on if it did very well then Liverpool will loose out then that's a very topsy turvy argument.

However, if HS2 does very well then the business case for building more HS lines increases, meaning that Liverpool would therefore be more likely to gain HS lines and services.

 

[Ianno87]

However, if HS2 does very well then the business case for building more HS lines increases, meaning that Liverpool would therefore be more likely to gain HS lines and services.

Exactly. Suddenly the business and economic case for an incremental HS2 extension to Liverpool potentially looks very good indeed (extra NPV outweighing the infrastructure), the main HS2 infrastructure having swallowed the big bucks cost of tunnels into Euston, etc, that an extension would be able to claim stick in its proverbial back pocket.

So Liverpool would then, in effect, be getting 'free' benefits off this pre-existing HS2 infrastructure.

Simple fact is, the more scope added into HS2 itself, the more likely it is to tip over the bounds of affordability, and thus benefit precisely nobody. It can never be all things to all people in one go (show me an infrastructure scheme that can!), but it can in more manageable/fundable if Phased into sensible, coherent chunks.

 

[sprunt]

Are you saying that KPMG, when reaching the conclusion that Liverpool would potentially lose £50 million in GVA per annum once HS2 is complete

The most recent figure I can find for Liverpool's GVA is 27,002 milion pounds in 2013 (per Wikipedia - the search for more recent figures is made harder by the existence of a preperty agent called GVA in Liverpool that swamps the Google search results). £50 million is less than a quarter of a percent of that. It's not an impact, it's a rounding error.

 

[tbtc]

I look forward to the response to the suggestion that Liverpool is secondary .......

I know some won't want to hear it, but it is - as is Sheffield (where I live).

Realistically, our cities are competing with the likes of Southampton and Bristol (rather than top tier London/ Birmingham/ Manchester/ Leeds).

I wish it weren't so, but that's how things are.

But, a lot of the better things about Liverpool and Sheffield are about character/ independence - smaller places are where you get that creativity.

Well exactly, although depending what definition you use, the Liverpool conurbation has either a bit under or a bit over 2 million people, and is the 5th biggest metropolitan area in England:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_in_the_United_Kingdom

Well, two million people if the definition of "Liverpool–Birkenhead" includes Chester, Warrington and Wigan, yes.

Are Chester, Warrington and Wigan dependent upon a HS2 line all the way to Lime Street, or would those passengers change elsewhere onto the network?

The problem is that it is easier to justify an extension to something that already exists.

As an example of we build a new line costing £50 billion and then build a series of extensions costing £25 billion that's more likely to happen than trying to build a £70 billion line in one go.

There's two reasons, first people are less scared of spending money in small amounts and this extends to the government spending that money.

The second is because there's miss trust from people on how many people would use the line. By building in stages it allows the government to show that's demand for it.

While I would like to see the likes of Liverpool on the HS network the extra cost of doing so from day one would make it a harder fight to get any of it built.

Agreed - to keep round numbers if it costs £50bm to build three hundred miles of new line (i.e. London to Manchester/ Leeds, with the various spurs to Birmingham etc) then trying to build a line connecting Southampton/ Bradford/ Hull etc too is going to be so huge that it'll never get built.

This is the old adage about the best being the enemy of the good.

Let's look at the benefits of HS2 from the point of view of someone living in Liverpool. We get 1 extra train an hour to London which is 30 minutes faster. I should sa6 we get this for part of.the day, as Liverpool already haa 2 TPH to London in certain hours

Usually the argument is that Liverpool suffers because it only gets one London train per hour.

But now that the proposal is for a half hourly service that knocks thirty minutes off the journey time, that's not good enough (because Liverpool already has two trains per hour when it suits you)?

The Sheffield-Leeds rivalry seems a lot nicer. Sheffield lobbied to be Liverpool - slower journey time than their rival city, and using classic tracks

I personally think that Sheffield's plan has backfired.

Leeds to London will be faster and more frequent than Sheffield to London, because our trains will be trundling along through Chesterfield and the Erewash Valley until they reach the HS2 connection - we'd have been better off with a station at Meadowhall (inside the city boundaries, already has a train/tram/bus station, convenient for motorway etc).

But that's life - Leeds has always been a bigger and more important destination than Sheffield - there's some rivalry between the cities but I don't think we have the same "grudge" that Liverpool/Manchester does. Just as long as nobody mentions the War Of The Monster Trucks...

Because it's the only metropolitan area where a sizeable number of people from it have spent the last 10 years saying that HS2 somehow doesn't serve Liverpool and that the scheme would be a disaster for the city...

Sheffield lobbied to get the Liverpool treatment - slower than rival city Leeds, using classic lines, etc. During their process, they never said that Meadowhall didn't serve their city, or that HS2 going to Meadowhall would be a disaster for the city - just that they would like to increase the benefit for the city.

True.

I think that the gamble was that if we insisted on a station in the city that they'd divert the whole line through Darnall/ Victoria/ Upper Don Valley so that Sheffield was on the main line - instead we are getting a spur in Nottinghamshire which means we'll see much slower services (than a Meadowhall stop would have had) and significantly fewer services too.

But the majority of people I've spoken to in Sheffield seem happy about that. The issue is going to be how/if we connect to HS2 going north for faster services to Leeds etc.

I guess that the "Meadowhall" equivalent for Liverpool would have been a station in Wigan (which is, after all, part of Liverpool's Metropolitan area).

 

[snowball]

Now, regrettably, it appears the scheme is going ahead, connecting London Euston with Birmingham with no promise of anything afterwards.

That's just a repeat of a barefaced falsity you've posted before. Even phase 1 reaches north of Birmingham. And if phase 2a were to be cancelled now, it would very much piss off the MPs who are on the committee taking evidence from objectors. If you had said "no certainty at present of anything north of Handsacre" that would have been honest.

 

[Ianno87]

I know some won't want to hear it, but it is - as is Sheffield (where I live).
Are Chester, Warrington and Wigan dependent upon a HS2 line all the way to Lime Street, or would those passengers change elsewhere onto the network?

Warrington and Wigan passengers wouldn't need to - they will be served by HS2 services directly! (Excellent post by the way).

 

[LOL The Irony]

Are Chester, Warrington and Wigan dependent upon a HS2 line all the way to Lime Street, or would those passengers change elsewhere onto the network?

Chester has 3 direct trains to Crewe an hour, taking around 20 minutes to complete a journey.

 

[Chester1]

Why not divert HS2 into the MML at East Midlands Parkway and split and join services there for Derby and Nottingham with Sheffield services? East Midlands Parkway to Derby/Nottingham/Sheffield could be wired. The western branch could be extended from Manchester to Leeds and York.

 

[AM9]

It seems that this thread has been at times yet another 'north vs south' (read London) debate, but has now gravitated to a north (Liverpool) vs north (Manchester) squabble. Usually the arguments then just grind to a halt leaving those not part of either northern camp being reminded why the north just can't work with itself for a common good. The original NPR thread went this way. Previously, there has been a Pennine divide issue but the Liverpool/Manchester rivalry seems to be stronger here. The result is basically the same, pointless repetition of well-practiced slogans.

 

[The Ham]

It seems that this thread has been at times yet another 'north vs south' (read London) debate, but has now gravitated to a north (Liverpool) vs north (Manchester) squabble. Usually the arguments then just grind to a halt leaving those not part of either northern camp being reminded why the north just can't work with itself for a common good. The original NPR thread went this way. Previously, there has been a Pennine divide issue but the Liverpool/Manchester rivalry seems to be stronger here. The result is basically the same, pointless repetition of well-practiced slogans.

I'll solve this problem, given that the North can't agree as to whether HS2 and NPR should be built the government have announced that they are going to build Crossrail 2 and the accesses to Heathrow with the money instead as the South all accept that these will be of benefit.

(Runs and hides).

 

[quantinghome]

Why not divert HS2 into the MML at East Midlands Parkway and split and join services there for Derby and Nottingham with Sheffield services? East Midlands Parkway to Derby/Nottingham/Sheffield could be wired. The western branch could be extended from Manchester to Leeds and York.

A number of reasons come to mind, including:
- It's easier to build a new railway from East Midlands to Leeds than Manchester to Leeds.
- The HS2 branch from Birmingham to East Midlands would be poorly utilised.
- Leeds - Birmingham (and London) would be slower.
- London - York would be so circuitous that it may not give any time saving over current services to York and the North-East.
- You would also lose the connectivity benefits between Yorkshire and the East Midlands. HS2 services will do Leeds - East Midlands in about half an hour, and gives passive provision for a high frequency service from Leeds to Sheffield with a sub-30 minute journey time. Electrification of the existing lines would not give this level of improvement.
- No capacity released on existing lines for more intensive commuter services for Leeds, Sheffield, Derby and Nottingham.

 

[B&I]

Because it's the only metropolitan area where a sizeable number of people from it have spent the last 10 years saying that HS2 somehow doesn't serve Liverpool and that the scheme would be a disaster for the city...

Sheffield lobbied to get the Liverpool treatment - slower than rival city Leeds, using classic lines, etc. During their process, they never said that Meadowhall didn't serve their city, or that HS2 going to Meadowhall would be a disaster for the city - just that they would like to increase the benefit for the city.

Yeah, that's right. Liverpolitans have been complaining about HS2 since 5 years before the route was announced, and that's the sole reason why HS2's own consultants said Liverpool was at risk of losing out economically feom HS2 as planned. Who writes your material ?

 

[B&I]

Is it the only area which stands to lose out? If the argument is "having a worse service compared to another city means businesses and people will leave, even if it's better than before" then surely this also applies to every city which HS2 doesn't serve?

Hence why I said only metropolitan area 'served' (ie with an HS2 service) by HS2. As KPMG pointed out, when forced to, lots of places lose out thanks to HS2. Some economic rebalancing

 

[B&I]

It's not, as it's not substantial. As it's a maximum of -0.7% of the economy.

Also my reading is it will only loose out if HS2 does very well. As such if the argument for not building HS2 is based on if it did very well then Liverpool will loose out then that's a very topsy turvy argument.

However, if HS2 does very well then the business case for building more HS lines increases, meaning that Liverpool would therefore be more likely to gain HS lines and services.

The most recent figure I can find for Liverpool's GVA is 27,002 milion pounds in 2013 (per Wikipedia - the search for more recent figures is made harder by the existence of a preperty agent called GVA in Liverpool that swamps the Google search results). £50 million is less than a quarter of a percent of that. It's not an impact, it's a rounding error.

Again, I assume all of you will cheerfully tell everyone who loses jobs and income that -0.7% of the economy is not a significant amount. I wonder if you'd be ao blasé if it was your job, or your income under threat. Still, treating people's lives as 'rounding errors' is standard operating procedure in modern Britain, then we wonder why so much of the population are so bitter and disenchanted.

Suggesting that, the more successful HS2 is, the more Liverpool.will suffer, is an interesting new argument. Doesn't that suggest that, as a means of improving economic performance across the country, HS2 is maybe a teensy weensy bit flawed ?

 

[B&I]

Exactly. Suddenly the business and economic case for an incremental HS2 extension to Liverpool potentially looks very good indeed (extra NPV outweighing the infrastructure), the main HS2 infrastructure having swallowed the big bucks cost of tunnels into Euston, etc, that an extension would be able to claim stick in its proverbial back pocket.

So Liverpool would then, in effect, be getting 'free' benefits off this pre-existing HS2 infrastructure.

Simple fact is, the more scope added into HS2 itself, the more likely it is to tip over the bounds of affordability, and thus benefit precisely nobody. It can never be all things to all people in one go (show me an infrastructure scheme that can!), but it can in more manageable/fundable if Phased into sensible, coherent chunks.

And if there was any definitive plan, funding or legislation in place for 'NPR', we wouldn't be having (much of) this argument. However, until any of those are in place, what we have is HS2 and a risk of substantial economic damage. How many more times would you like me to point this out ?

 

[Ianno87]

And if there was any definitive plan, funding or legislation in place for 'NPR', we wouldn't be having (much of) this argument. However, until any of those are in place, what we have is HS2 and a risk of substantial economic damage. How many more times would you like me to point this out ?

The "substantial damage" (which in all probability it isn't) won't start to apply until HS2 Phase 2B opens and is in operation in *2033* (15 years time).

I'd like to think by then a Liverpool connection might be at least a tiny bit more comitted than it is now...

(15 years back in time from today - CTRL Phase 1 hadn't quite opened and wasn't even known as HS1, never mind HS2, so shows how things can change!)

 

[B&I]

I know some won't want to hear it, but it is - as is Sheffield (where I live).

Realistically, our cities are competing with the likes of Southampton and Bristol (rather than top tier London/ Birmingham/ Manchester/ Leeds).

I wish it weren't so, but that's how things are.

But, a lot of the better things about Liverpool and Sheffield are about character/ independence - smaller places are where you get that creativity.



Well, two million people if the definition of "Liverpool–Birkenhead" includes Chester, Warrington and Wigan, yes.

Are Chester, Warrington and Wigan dependent upon a HS2 line all the way to Lime Street, or would those passengers change elsewhere onto the network?



Agreed - to keep round numbers if it costs £50bm to build three hundred miles of new line (i.e. London to Manchester/ Leeds, with the various spurs to Birmingham etc) then trying to build a line connecting Southampton/ Bradford/ Hull etc too is going to be so huge that it'll never get built.

This is the old adage about the best being the enemy of the good.



Usually the argument is that Liverpool suffers because it only gets one London train per hour.

But now that the proposal is for a half hourly service that knocks thirty minutes off the journey time, that's not good enough (because Liverpool already has two trains per hour when it suits you)?



I personally think that Sheffield's plan has backfired.

Leeds to London will be faster and more frequent than Sheffield to London, because our trains will be trundling along through Chesterfield and the Erewash Valley until they reach the HS2 connection - we'd have been better off with a station at Meadowhall (inside the city boundaries, already has a train/tram/bus station, convenient for motorway etc).

But that's life - Leeds has always been a bigger and more important destination than Sheffield - there's some rivalry between the cities but I don't think we have the same "grudge" that Liverpool/Manchester does. Just as long as nobody mentions the War Of The Monster Trucks...



True.

I think that the gamble was that if we insisted on a station in the city that they'd divert the whole line through Darnall/ Victoria/ Upper Don Valley so that Sheffield was on the main line - instead we are getting a spur in Nottinghamshire which means we'll see much slower services (than a Meadowhall stop would have had) and significantly fewer services too.

But the majority of people I've spoken to in Sheffield seem happy about that. The issue is going to be how/if we connect to HS2 going north for faster services to Leeds etc.

I guess that the "Meadowhall" equivalent for Liverpool would have been a station in Wigan (which is, after all, part of Liverpool's Metropolitan area).

So Wigan, 22 miles by road from Liverpool city centre, would be equivalent to Meadowhall, 4.5 miles from Sheffield city centre. Is there really any point in responding to a post which hinges on such a total misunderstanding of geographical fact ?

Please don't misrepresent this as some sort of jealousy towards Manchester. It is about bit being put at a substantial competitive disadvantage, and at risk of real economic loss as a result. I know I have now pointed this out perhapa a couple of dozen times on this thread, but when people seem so determined to.plonk their heads in the sand it makes the task all the harder

 

[B&I]

It seems that this thread has been at times yet another 'north vs south' (read London) debate, but has now gravitated to a north (Liverpool) vs north (Manchester) squabble. Usually the arguments then just grind to a halt leaving those not part of either northern camp being reminded why the north just can't work with itself for a common good. The original NPR thread went this way. Previously, there has been a Pennine divide issue but the Liverpool/Manchester rivalry seems to be stronger here. The result is basically the same, pointless repetition of well-practiced slogans.

I'll solve this problem, given that the North can't agree as to whether HS2 and NPR should be built the government have announced that they are going to build Crossrail 2 and the accesses to Heathrow with the money instead as the South all accept that these will be of benefit.

(Runs and hides).

Please see above. This is not a parochial squabble, it is an argument about why one city should suffer the risk of economic damage so its rivals can reap the economic rewards of new infrastructure.

No-one in Liverpool has said Manchester shouldn't be provided with a high speed line. Can you provide me with an example of any of Manchester's civic leaders (apart from Andy Burnham), or even any Manchester-based posters on here (with the exception of Chester1) supporting a high speed line being built to Liverpool as part of HS2 ?

 

[Ianno87]

Please see above. This is not a parochial squabble, it is an argument about why one city should suffer the risk of economic damage so its rivals can reap the economic rewards of new infrastructure.

No-one in Liverpool has said Manchester shouldn't be verting a high speed line. Can you provide me with an example of any of Manchester's civic leaders, or even any Manchester-baswd posters on here (with the exception of Chester1) supporting a high speed line being built to Liverpool as part of HS2 ?

I'm not Manchester based (used to be), but I support the principle of a High Speed connection to Liverpool by *some* project - there are clear benefits of doing so.

Howver, my view is that HS2 (which is humoungous already as it is) is more likely to be a palatable (i.e. affordable) major national scheme if a connection into Liverpool is not provided, but as such becomes a more certain 'stepping stone' towards this being provided by another scheme instead. I.e. makes it more likely to eventually happen

 

[B&I]

The "substantial damage" (which in all probability it isn't) won't start to apply until HS2 Phase 2B opens and is in operation in *2033* (15 years time).

I'd like to think by then a Liverpool connection might be at least a tiny bit more comitted than it is now...

(15 years back in time from today - CTRL Phase 1 hadn't quite opened and wasn't even known as HS1, never mind HS2, so shows how things can change!)

Isn't speculation fun ? We could still be sitting here in 2033 bandying about justifications for not building a high speed line to Liverpool. Its shrinking economy perhaps being one of them.

Until there is any evidence that 'NPR' is more than a bit of idle chatter, to be tossed aside as casually as platforms 15 and 16 at Piccadilly, or electrification to Sheffield, I'll stick to the facts as they currently are, thanks

I'm not Manchester based (used to be), but I support the principle of a High Speed connection to Liverpool by *some* project - there are clear benefits of doing so.

Howver, my view is that HS2 (which is humoungous already as it is) is more likely to be a palatable (i.e. affordable) major national scheme if a connection into Liverpool is not provided, but as such becomes a more certain 'stepping stone' towards this being provided by another scheme instead. I.e. makes it more likely to eventually happen

So, you, a Manchester-based poster, are opposed to a high speed line being built to.Liverpool as part of HS2, which is consistent with what I said before