Confirmed : HS2 West Midlands-Manchester line to be scrapped and replaced with other projects.

[MarkyT]

The important matter from the point of view of the party sponsors is that London - Scotland journey times will now not be reduced drastically. The beginning of this process was the dropping of the Golbourne link. This will help to 'conserve' the airlines' domestic business on the route and ensure no reduction in fossil fuel usage by aircraft involved will occur.

 

[inais20]

I was expecting an explicit Leamside Line mention seeing the Tees Mayor was calling for HS2 to be axed last week.

The "North East" section of the gov's list explicitly mentions Leamside reopening:

Reopening stations: Communities in the North East will be reconnected, including a new station at Ferryhill, Co Durham. The Leamside line, closed in 1964, will also be reopened.

 

[childwallblues]

A tram system fot Leeds but not for Liverpool? Liverpool had a well planned system in 2009 but was taken off us by Alistair Darling. Reports say the money was given to Manchester. Would not surprise me.

 

[nr758123]

Looking at the linked "Network North" document above and putting aside the, erm, aspirational nature of many of the suggestions, i am shocked to learn that East Anglia, the South East, the south west and wales are all part of the "north".

Who knew.

( PS Good to see the A1 duelling in the list. I wonder if it will happen this time.............)

Not only that, but it appears that Ashington, Felton, Alnwick, and Amble are now in Scotland.

 

[Bald Rick]

Calling Bald Rick, you corrected me some time ago for saying this would not go to manchester. Im nothing if not magmanimous in victory, but this is absolutley nothing to celebreate. Hugey dissapointing.

I did.

I was wrong. A very sad day indeed.

I agree with the rest of your post.

A lot has changed in terms of Government policy towards the railways.

 

[DarloRich]

Let there be no doubt, Sunak's plan is a switch from rail to road building.

risking being burnt as a heretic: we do need to build and maintain roads. It is good to see things like the A1 mentioned but i am surprised the A66 was excluded.

 

[deltic]

The full list is online.

I’ll believe it when I see it but it does mention reopening the Ivanhoe line:

Find out about every new transport project in your region

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.

www.gov.uk

While many of the road schemes listed have been subject to detailed work and are in a long pipeline of schemes very few of the rail schemes will have had much work on them and will all be subject to business cases so few if any will ever be delivered based on past experience. There is no time scale for any of the funding, and a lot of money "could be spent on ..."

 

[DarloRich]

The "North East" section of the gov's list explicitly mentions Leamside reopening:

Reopening stations: Communities in the North East will be reconnected, including a new station at Ferryhill, Co Durham. The Leamside line, closed in 1964, will also be reopened.

Ferryhill station has been a cause the local MP Phil Howell ( Sedgefield) has been vocal in supporting. Majority: c.4.5k

Leamside is going to cost a fortune. Is it to open as a metro route or a national rail route? I am surprised to see so little for the north east. High Viz Houchen wont be pleased.

 

[D869]

Did Sunak actually say that he will save £6.5 billion at Euston?

https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1709531171799937508

 

[Dan G]

Now I've only got maths A level, so my grasp of numbers won't be on the same scale as a bloke who's worked for an investment bank and a couple of hedge funds, and whose family wealth can't be shown on a conventional calculator because there aren't enough zeroes, but how does this make sense:

Screenshot from the gov.uk link referred to above.

"£2 bus fare will also be extended: Will run to the end of December 2024 instead of rising to £2.50 as planned. This will mean passengers on a bus journey from Lancaster to Kendal will save £12.50 every time they travel"

So deferring the planned 50p fare increase saves every passenger £12.50 per journey! He's a miracle worker!!

Thanks for the link. At first glance it looks like the RNEP and RIS3.

 

[Delenn]

risking being burnt as a heretic: we do need to build and maintain roads. It is good to see things like the A1 mentioned but i am surprised the A66 was excluded.

And the A64, which has been a nightmare every summer for decades.

 

[anthony263]

Electrify the North Wales Mainline - I’ll believe it when I see it, would be interesting to know when and what trains will use this. There must be a minuscule business case for this given the TfW 197s that have just arrived.

Yes the business case for it is probably lower than Cardiff to Swansea.

bet tfw not impressed. Money would have been better spent finishing the GWML electrification to Oxford, Bristol TM and Swansea and get Swindon-Gloucester -Severn Tunnel Junction done

 

[rich.davies]

Electrifying the North Wales Mainline..that will surpass the budget no doubt...Probably deserves a thread on it's own for further discussion...

 

[swt_passenger]

Ferryhill station has been a cause the local MP Phil Howell ( Sedgefield) has been vocal in supporting. Majority: c.4.5k

Leamside is going to cost a fortune. Is it to open as a metro route or a national rail route? I am surprised to see so little for the north east. High Viz Houchen wont be pleased.

I’ve never seen any proposal that’s gone into detail as to exactly how it would be used. Always seems that reopening it is an article of faith, and the reason why will come along later by accident…

 

[inais20]

Leamside is going to cost a fortune. Is it to open as a metro route or a national rail route?

I suppose it doesn't explicitly say it's reopening as rail - might just get tarmac'ed over and become a bus lane!

 

[DarloRich]

I’ve never seen any proposal that’s gone into detail as to exactly how it would be used. Always seems that reopening it is an article of faith, and the reason why will come along later by accident…

build it and they will come ( and vote for us)

 

[anthony263]

Calling Bald Rick, you corrected me some time ago for saying this would not go to manchester. Im nothing if not magmanimous in victory, but this is absolutley nothing to celebreate. Hugey dissapointing.

HS2 will cost £100B. Once. It boosts UK GDP by £100B every year. This is truly penny wise and pound foolish.

HM Treasury wins again. Every UK citizen will lose out.

You pay, they spend, and life in the UK gets harder. Rinse and repeat.

If any of you think the £36B will materialise, please get in touch directly, I have a number of beutiful bridges for sale. Why cancel a project that is already being built, if not for saving money, only to go and spend the money elsewhere. HMT must think we are fools.

Now, when is this going to be announced in Parliament? When will this be debated?

Will L Hoyle find a spine and recall parliamnet? This is a huge policy change, one that has not been mandated by the electorate, it must be debated in the House.

How has Rishi concluded that he has a mandate for this action, or any other "policy" he announced?

This UK Government has little to no legitimacy left, it is 100% time for an election.

I think its going to come to z head. 3 prime ministers since the last election. HOYE needs to go to the King and request he speak to sunak and tell him to call a election or withdraw his support.

Many tories rebelling over this their Midlands mayor is on tje verge of quitting over it.

 

[Dan G]

Electrifying the North Wales Mainline..that will surpass the budget no doubt...Probably deserves a thread on it's own for further discussion...

Hilariously it's listed as costing just £1bn.

 

[jw]

Hope Valley line electrification and reopening to Tavistock also mentioned as part of 'Network North'. Shame we couldn't have these *and* HS2 to Manchester.

The cynic in me won't be getting my hopes up as to balance spend the Government may not fund these projects until the time frame in which HS2 would have spent the money...

 

[Luke McDonnell]

Like many in here I am very disappointed my the decision to build HS2 phase 2 but do you think that we could take comfort in the fact that at least Phase 1 is under construction it is still an impressive piece of infrastructure from an engineering perspective with the longest underland railway tunnel in the UK and completion of Euston and at least we are on our way to have our second purpose built high speed line after HS1 and with the fact that we will probably have the Tories out of government within a year too I remember when HS2 was first proposed back in 2009 it was just the Euston to Birmingham section that will be confirmed and at least we will have more length of dedicated high speed infrastructure than any other English speaking nation including US and Australia (I know that California has had HSR under construction but that has its own problems) yes no kidding I am very disappointed and as I think at the very least it should go to Crewe.

And yes the big issue with me is the stonewalling by Conservative ministers consistently denying a decision has been made even though we all knew it was true and the repeated promises that successive Tory prime ministers made that also is enough for the Conservatives to loose badly and I hope they suffer at the election badly just like the Lib Dems suffered when they reneged over tuition fees and the loss of the cross party concensus and Labour still need to be committed IMO as said I have pressed my MP on this.

As far as the journey times is concerned what would be the journey times from Manchester and Liverpool to Euston via HS2 from Hansacre it has been stated that the HS2 sets will be slower than the 390s on the classic WCML but does that mean they will be restricted to 110mph north of Hansacre? Surely 125mph at least should be possible with the ETCS coming on line? Any idea as to journey times? And is this not more similar to the German piecemeal approach of short stretches of new build with the ICEs travelling all over the classic network surely when HS2 1 us completed Manchester/Liverpool - London journey times should be better than comparable ICE runs in Germany I think the ECML journey time from London KX to Newcastle is only slightly longer than current journey times from Tokyo-Osaka on the Shinkansen (same distance) can anyone provide a more detailed comparison for me? So that shows that capacity not speed is the issue

 

[SteveM70]

Could we collectively go through the list (gov's list) and identify:

- how many of the 78 bullet points are things that have previously been announced, so NOT new money

- how many of them are the same thing repeated multiple times (eg the pothole stuff gets mentioned 8 times)

- whether the funding announcement matches the apparent scale of the works

(And if there are any true masochists on here, perhaps mark it for grammar)

The document reads like someone's told an intern or placement student to create a powerpoint and they must get at least 75 bullet points

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

So now I read of Hope Valley electrification (Sheffield-Stockport) as well as Sheffield-Leeds (presumably with MML wiring to Sheffield).
Ivanhoe Line, Old Road-Sheffield Vic-Stocksbridge, Stoke-Leek and Gobowen-Oswestry reopening.
Where did they find all that lot?
Where do Network Rail start?

 

[D869]

All Sunak's recent announcements prove that we now have government by personal whim of an unelected prime minister who has gone rogue. Anything he personally dislikes is liable to be banned, scrapped or delayed, with no scrutiny by parliament or any other consultation.

 

[RichW1]

I will stick my neck out here and say it [isn’t] the end of HS2. It is scrapped north of Birmingham (for now). The ESG and Diversity & Inclusion nonsense and wider waste, meaning it costs many times more to build this in the UK than other countries must end. Once we created a better framework for infrastructure delivery (yes, we are talking years) then it is my belief a later government will look at this again. Our culture is wrong. Everything needs to be reset, costs controlled, methods changed. The consultant gravy train will be replaced.

 

[SteveM70]

All Sunak's recent announcements prove that we now have government by personal whim of an unelected prime minister who has gone rogue. Anything he personally dislikes is liable to be banned, scrapped or delayed, with no scrutiny by parliament or any other consultation.

If he'd fully gone rogue he'd have announced funding for a helipad in every town

 

[mister-sparky]

Many of the rail schemes listed as going ahead have been through cost analysis and reports before and they’ve all failed as not having a high enough cost to benefit ratio. What’s changed now?? 80% of these schemes will never happen.

 

[Bletchleyite]

A tram system fot Leeds but not for Liverpool? Liverpool had a well planned system in 2009 but was taken off us by Alistair Darling. Reports say the money was given to Manchester. Would not surprise me.

Liverpool has Merseyrail. Leeds has nowt. It's ludicrous that such a large, important city has an almost entirely bus based public transport system.

I will stick my neck out here and say it [isn’t] the end of HS2. It is scrapped north of Birmingham (for now). The ESG and Diversity & Inclusion nonsense and wider waste, meaning it costs many times more to build this in the UK than other countries must end. Once we created a better framework for infrastructure delivery (yes, we are talking years) then it is my belief a later government will look at this again. Our culture is wrong. Everything needs to be reset, costs controlled, methods changed. The consultant gravy train will be replaced.

It's much easier to reinstate Phase 2A than Euston. It's just farmland.

 

[MPW]

risking being burnt as a heretic: we do need to build and maintain roads. It is good to see things like the A1 mentioned but i am surprised the A66 was excluded.

I am pro-rail/transport but do massively agree that roads should be maintained to a high standard to avoid negative externalities to road users (including bus/taxi passengers!) from excessive wear. My personal resistance to expanding road networks is because they:
- Do not actually reduce congestion*
- Are against long-term aims of reducing carbon emissions (electric cars don't solve it) - whether people like it or not that is the direction the world is going, so spending on long-term infrastructure to the contrary is not good use of public money. I might be persuaded to accept schemes which cannot easily be substituted by improved public transport for poorly served communities, though I do not think these announcements are in that category
- but most importantly, we almost never see the cost of road schemes compared to public transit projects so the arguments made against transit about ballooning costs do not get fairly applied to road projects. A holistic approach to improving connections from point A to B might suggest a road is fastest if transit would have to start from scratch. But I think if considered together with realistic modelling of capacity impacts and negative externalities to non-road users (eg home owners) I do honestly believe rail/transit would win out in the vast majority of cases.
- what about bus lanes?? Sure, widen a road but do so by adding a new bus lane (in contrast to many bus lanes which take away a lane). There would be no loss of existing road spaces for private vehicles, and those fast(er) buses should hopefully reduce the number of vehicles! You could even have an express lane option like I have seen in my home area (Silicon Valley) where drivers pay a premium to go in the fast lane - the pricing could be used to keep the numbers down enough to keep the buses going at a reasonable speed.

* based on my Economics of Transport class in Uni 15 years ago, and the many other legit sources that I can't be bothered to dig up

 

[6Gman]

Calling Bald Rick, you corrected me some time ago for saying this would not go to manchester. Im nothing if not magmanimous in victory, but this is absolutley nothing to celebreate. Hugey dissapointing.

HS2 will cost £100B. Once. It boosts UK GDP by £100B every year. This is truly penny wise and pound foolish.

HM Treasury wins again. Every UK citizen will lose out.

You pay, they spend, and life in the UK gets harder. Rinse and repeat.

If any of you think the £36B will materialise, please get in touch directly, I have a number of beutiful bridges for sale. Why cancel a project that is already being built, if not for saving money, only to go and spend the money elsewhere. HMT must think we are fools.

Now, when is this going to be announced in Parliament? When will this be debated?

Will L Hoyle find a spine and recall parliamnet? This is a huge policy change, one that has not been mandated by the electorate, it must be debated in the House.

How has Rishi concluded that he has a mandate for this action, or any other "policy" he announced?

This UK Government has little to no legitimacy left, it is 100% time for an election.

This is an important point.

HS2 is supported by legislation which presumably requires parliamentary revocation.

For Sunak to announce, at party conference, that "I am cancelling the rest of HS2" seems a little out of order.

I hope the Speaker, at the very least, will point out that we are a parliamentary democracy not a prime ministerial autocracy.

In theory.

 

[Bletchleyite]

HS2 is supported by legislation which presumably requires parliamentary revocation.

Laws enable a railway to be built. They don't require it to be built.