I don’t care a fig for Boris but if he bins HS2 he’s a fair bloke in my book. Biggest waste of money ever not to mention the amount of grief it’s causing to people along the route who are having their life’s turned upside down by something they don’t want.
Come on Boris Scrap it!!
Let's have a look at some of the background which is likely to be taken into account as part of the review:
- passenger growth seen since 2009 when it was announced, this had grown a lot more than predicted. If we set 2009 as the base with 100, then by 2026 with 2.5% growth per year it would have been 152 and by 2033 it would have reached 181. It currently is at 170 for travel between London & the regions which benefit from phase 1 and phase 2a whilst for all regions it's 150.
- passenger growth rates, in 2013 the report dropped the expected growth rate to 1.9%/year so they've moved the tagged. Yes they have but, using the same base of 100 in 2009, this new growth rate sets the 2033 target to 200 because of the growth seen between 2009 & 2013. As such the target had got higher. However because of the amount of growth seen to date the amount of growth between London and the regions which benefit from HS2 phase 1- 2a only now need to achieve an average of 1.1% per year to to 2033 to hit that target of 200. That will also include the first 7 years of phase 1 operation (assuming it opens on time) where growth is likely to spike.
- growth rates are falling and between London & the North West it was 0 between 2016/17 & 17/18, although that is true, what investment has been seen since the lengthening of the class 390's, what extra services now exist? Very few, so it's not a surprise that growth has slowed. However if Virgin brings in their new Liverpool service and the new franchise brings about more changes then more growth wouldn't be a suprise. It'll be interesting to see what the growth to Yorkshire and the North East will be this year and next with the new trains coming into service, which will also allow extra services.
- spending on the existing network, since 2009 there's been about £25bn spent on enhancements to the existing network (not including HS2, maintenance or new trains and although some of our was on Crossrail it was less than £3bn), the account spent has been growing year on year since 2009 (even after the start of spending on HS2).
- Better East West links, especially in the North, the Trans Pennies Upgrade is due to happen by the time phase 1 is due to open whilst Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) is planned to follow on from HS2. In fact NPR is reliant on HS2 infrastructure, so the canceling of HS2 is likely to push the costs for NPR up making it less likely to happen.
- Local services. By reviving the intercity services from existing platforms it allows the lengthening of existing trains. If you remove 2tph from a station those 11 coach trains could allow 4 trains of 6 coaches to occupy the same platform space. However those 4 trains would have been elsewhere in the station, meaning that 4 other services can be lengthened which were otherwise sharing platforms with those services. That's a total of 8 local trains an hour (120 over a 15 hour day) which can be lengthened, although that's not the final number. As long distance trains occupy stations at their end points for 30 plus minutes whilst local services are there for less than 20 minutes, allowing a 50% increase to 12 local services an hour (180 over a 15 hour day). There's a good chance it may not be that high, as some long distance services may become replaced by new local services, but that's still improving local services.
- Pacers (& other old trains), Pacers are due to be gone in just over 6 months time. Whilst between 2014 & 2024 there's due to be over 5,000 new coaches delivered, including over 100 to Northern and a load to TPE. However even that 5,000 isn't the full picture as it doesn't include the new trains for TfW or EMT
- Broadband. It's often argued that improving Broadband speeds would result in less travel. The picture to date appears to be that each person is reducing the amount they drive but increasing the amount of rail travel. This could be that if there's less daily commuting the cost per mile of driving guess up (due to the fixed costs not changing, and they can be fairly significant costs), as such it can be cheaper to use rail 50-150 times a year than drive 200+ times a year.
- Broadband speeds, broadband speeds are currently an average of 55mb/s with satellite internet giving the base speed of 30mb/s for those who need fast broadband it is available to them. However, the recent £100 million fund to get 100 rural schools 100mb/s broadband is currently looking for more schools as there's still finding available. That's over 100 villages which now have fiber broadband to them which the local community will be able to connect into benefiting hundreds of homes in each location.
Any review is likely to consider points like those above and so if anyone wishes to stop HS2 they need to be able to argue against the above points. Anyone fancy a go at doing so?
) Jeremy want to appeal to the widest spready of Tory members before the vote.
