Revealed: The 36 rail projects at risk of being scrapped to plug Labour’s £22bn black hole and related issues

[Bletchleyite]

Lot more voting drivers than voting rail users.

Also a lot more bus passengers than rail passengers. Bus travel on bad roads is beyond grim.

 

[YorksLad12]

White Rose station seems almost complete when I go past it.

A way to go yet, sadly.

Surely West Yorks chancing its arm trying to get someone else to pay for its own mismanagement - (is White Rose company contributing ? It ought to..)

It's easy to blame the post-Truss rise in inflation, at the Brexit-induced lack of personpower... but they are factors in a lot of infrastructure projects at the moment. The owners of White Rose Business Park have contributed £4m I believe.

But even if there was funding to finish White Rose, you'd still need some dosh to decommission Cottingley...

Waverley (South Yorks) is on the list too, which is news to me having claimed in the New Stations pinned thread that it was going ahead, at least up to Outline Business Case.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I've said the same thing many times myself. We need to get back to being able to open cheap "halts" as WY Metro did in the 1980's

Of these referred-to WY Metro halts have any of these recently had any problems platform-wise?

 

[lachlan]

As a cyclist it would actually be really appreciated if money was used to fill potholes rather than wasted on dualling projects (that don't always go ahead) or new roads like the Lower Yhames Crossing. Cycling over bumpy roads sucks too.

That being said all too often improvements to public transport and cycling infrastructure is opposed and the response is "fill potholes instead".

 

[Pinus contorta]

I thought Avon Metro got chopped (if it ever existed...) in the early 1990s following the 90/91 recession. One John Major i/c back then!

Still many more times it will get chopped yet, m'thinks.

Bit odd, because Bristol is a place that is so spread out (eg. Filton, Bradley Stoke, Portishead, Yate, Bedminster, Airport, Pucklechurch) that a light rail scheme (with car parks at the stations...) might actually make transport sense as trams are quite fast (see Germany for many examples)!

I thought it was cut at the same time as the Liverpool light rail scheme, that would have been Alastair Darling holding the purse strings by then I think.

 

[Harpo]

Since when is fixing potholes nonsense?

It’s never a nonsense to fix them. What is a nonsense is our nation looking like a third world country with visibly knackered infrastructure, then cancelling off major new infrastructure and suggesting that it now gives us the money needed to mend our roads.

 

[43066]

It’s never a nonsense to fix them. What is a nonsense is our nation looking like a third world country with visibly knackered infrastructure, then cancelling off major new infrastructure and suggesting that it now gives us the money needed to mend our roads.

As the world’s sixth largest economy we should be able to both fix the roads, and deliver decent infrastructure projects, without having to choose between them.

 

[ABB125]

As the world’s sixth largest economy we should be able to both fix the roads, and deliver decent infrastructure projects, without having to choose between them.

Unfortunately, everything that even touches the construction industry in this country (be it road, rail or anything else) is so expensive that unless there are significant changes in government policy*, there will always have to be a choice.

*Or maybe a proper investigation into, and subsequent rectification of, the issues which cause it to be so expensive

 

[43066]

Unfortunately, everything that even touches the construction industry in this country (be it road, rail or anything else) is so expensive that unless there are significant changes in government policy*, there will always have to be a choice.

*Or maybe a proper investigation into, and subsequent rectification of, the issues which cause it to be so expensive

I don’t buy that.

I’m not convinced they’re prohibitively expensive - much as it might suit certain politicians to claim otherwise - and much of that expense will itself be a result of government policy. There’s seemingly plenty of money in this country to haemorrhage on the NHS, pay for the triple lock etc.

 

[greyman42]

Can I point out the obvious: Labour was not in power when the hole was dug.

There is no hole, its a Labour lie.

 

[43066]

There is no hole, its a Labour lie.

Is that what GB News told you?

I suppose you think the public finances were left in good order by the outgoing government…

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

As the world’s sixth largest economy we should be able to both fix the roads, and deliver decent infrastructure projects, without having to choose between them.

As the world's sixth largest economy, there are countless other priorities to deal with, whick rank far higher on the calls for Governmental finance than roads and infrastructure.

 

[cactustwirly]

Is that what GB News told you?

I suppose you think the public finances were left in good order by the outgoing government…

Well Labour are definitely twisting the situation for political gain.
If you look at what it actually is, it's extra costs from asylum seekers that wasn't budgeted for and Labours inflation busting pay rises.

I imagine the finances weren't great when Labour inherited them, after COVID, Brexit and Ukraine wars it was very obvious they weren't going to be hunky dory, but the £20bn is an exaggeration

 

[Adrian1980uk]

Is that what GB News told you?

I suppose you think the public finances were left in good order by the outgoing government…

I'm lacking in understanding where the 22 billion black hole comes from, the public sector borrowed 13 billion in August alone, so the black hole for August was 13 billion.

Back on subject though, the government needs to review what they're investing in as the list that's been in play for the last year was political panic from cancelling HS2 phase 2 with no real thought

 

[yorksrob]

Also a lot more bus passengers than rail passengers. Bus travel on bad roads is beyond grim.

Different markets, different needs.

Of these referred-to WY Metro halts have any of these recently had any problems platform-wise?

They get patched up with squares of replacement wood every now and again. Nothing very hi-tec needed.

There is no hole, its a Labour lie.

There is - I'm sure the government would love to be splashing the cash if there wasn't !

 

[The exile]

It’s never a nonsense to fix them. What is a nonsense is our nation looking like a third world country with visibly knackered infrastructure, then cancelling off major new infrastructure and suggesting that it now gives us the money needed to mend our roads.

It’s nonsense to “fix” them they way it is too often done. Unfortunately, target-driven culture means it is “better” to bodge 20 potholes that reappear within 6 months than to do 10 properly (or indeed to maintain roads such that potholes don’t appear at all - after all then there’d be no chance to boast about repairing them). We used to make fun of Eastern European countries for their slavish adherence to meaningless targets….

 

[yorksrob]

A way to go yet, sadly.

It's easy to blame the post-Truss rise in inflation, at the Brexit-induced lack of personpower... but they are factors in a lot of infrastructure projects at the moment. The owners of White Rose Business Park have contributed £4m I believe.

But even if there was funding to finish White Rose, you'd still need some dosh to decommission Cottingley...

Waverley (South Yorks) is on the list too, which is news to me having claimed in the New Stations pinned thread that it was going ahead, at least up to Outline Business Case.

Ah - I only see it from the rail side, so the rest of it may be unfinished.

As for Cottingley, surely just chain up a barrier in front of it and a sign saying its closed ? There's no need to demolish everything.

 

[43066]

As the world's sixth largest economy, there are countless other priorities to deal with, whick rank far higher on the calls for Governmental finance than roads and infrastructure.

Is there anything more fundamental than having decent infrastructure?

Much as the discussions on this forum are often railway versus road, surely it hasn’t escaped your notice that the roads are currently in the worst state they’ve been in living memory? Even a two Range Rover man such as yourself must have suffered.

If you look at what it actually is, it's extra costs from asylum seekers that wasn't budgeted for and Labours inflation busting pay rises.

Inflation busting pay rises!? That’s a laughable suggestion, if you look at what has happened to public sector pay over the past 15 years.

Don’t believe everything GB News/The Mail tell you. The problems in this country aren’t actually all down to unions and people with brown skin .

 

[6Gman]

I'm struggling to find any news in that article. It has already been stated that RYR as a programme is cancelled and/but each scheme will be subject to individual review.

I remember when The Independent launched, with such promise....

Wellington is supposed to be happening but it's RYR bid is combined with Cullompton which I guess isn't.
Aldridge doesn't feature in the article but has already been announced as 'deferred'.
Beeston Castle and Tarporley, ahem, an oversight by the journalist or is it really going to be built? Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Sheep to Chester and cattle to Crewe!
Mablethorpe and Firsby, the scheme that slithered into the update report by a secret backdoor?

Sadly the livestock market is no more.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Is there anything more fundamental than having decent infrastructure?

Much as the discussions on this forum are often railway versus road, surely it hasn’t escaped your notice that the roads are currently in the worst state they’ve been in living memory? Even a two Range Rover man such as yourself must have suffered.

The answer to your query concerning having decent infrastructure is surely the NHS service as that organisation must treat an inordinate number of patients of all age ranges from birth to old age every single day.

 

[BlueLeanie]

What's the total value that the £22Bn has been used for so far?

Anyway, easy thing to fix really. Just add VAT to all council services like parking permits and on-street parking, along with an annual £800 tax on residential off-street parking, along with an annual tax of £800 per year for an on-street parking permit - all going straight to the treasury.

The latter two tick all the boxes for Labour voters demanding "sticks" to promote active travel, and punishment of car drivers.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

A way to go yet, sadly.

It's easy to blame the post-Truss rise in inflation, at the Brexit-induced lack of personpower... but they are factors in a lot of infrastructure projects at the moment. The owners of White Rose Business Park have contributed £4m I believe.

But even if there was funding to finish White Rose, you'd still need some dosh to decommission Cottingley...

Waverley (South Yorks) is on the list too, which is news to me having claimed in the New Stations pinned thread that it was going ahead, at least up to Outline Business Case.

The list in the article is taken straight from the 2022 update document, in exactly the same order, with some editing out of schemes going ahead. Waverley probably has more chance of going ahead if it can still be funded out of those large devolved transport pots rather than directly by central government.

 

[Topological]

What's the total value that the £22Bn has been used for so far?

Anyway, easy thing to fix really. Just add VAT to all council services like parking permits and on-street parking, along with an annual £800 tax on residential off-street parking, along with an annual tax of £800 per year for an on-street parking permit - all going straight to the treasury.

The latter two tick all the boxes for Labour voters demanding "sticks" to promote active travel, and punishment of car drivers.

To be fair parking would be an excellent Labour idea. The same effect is achieved by adding £800 to road tax, but by having a separate scheme you can employ more administrators.

The £22bn is a complete fallacy. Whatever the rights, wrongs, and otherwise, the decisions made by governments are typically ideological and then sold to the public. Note how the % of the economy controlled by the government changes so little. Further, it was actually the Conservatives who were in power for the most recent rise in the government %.

This is very off-topic though. Investment for infrastructure is one of the more viable things to fund by borrowing, borrowing being exactly what a private enterprise does to invest in capacity.

In essence, it would be great if these projects (and others) could genuinely be assessed on their true merits and some spades be put into the ground.

Can I point out the obvious: Labour was not in power when the hole was dug.

The people in Bristol who want an underground or perhaps even a cable car are looking even sillier than before, though. I'd personally love to see trams like the Swiss manage, there's even a nice turning loop on something called Tramway Road, but it's not going to happen unless we start charging overseas students council tax or something.

Just for reference, charging overseas students council tax is the most stupid idea on here for getting funding.

Overseas students already subsidise domestic students so anything that makes being an overseas student more difficult has major ramifications. We need to work out a better university funding model, but until we do it is only overseas students keeping the sector viable. Without the £bns generated by higher education we would really have a black hole.

Overseas students need taking out of immigration figures, not being given more burden to support our failure to control wasteful spending elsewhere.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I'm lacking in understanding where the 22 billion black hole comes from, the public sector borrowed 13 billion in August alone, so the black hole for August was 13 billion.

Its pressure on the budget since it was originally set last autumn public sector pay is now far higher than the Tories budgeted for +9B, asylum costs are another 6B the rest is a myriad of other departmental overspends including the DfT. Technically the black hole is already 142 Billion as that was the borrowing budgeted for so with another 22B on top of that looks like its 164B now but we wont know true numbers till budget. On top of this govt has to borrow a further 135B to refinance borrowing from previous years that due. So all in all total borrowing is a forecast 277B currently! So in some respects another 22B is small change.

 

[cactustwirly]

What's the total value that the £22Bn has been used for so far?

Anyway, easy thing to fix really. Just add VAT to all council services like parking permits and on-street parking, along with an annual £800 tax on residential off-street parking, along with an annual tax of £800 per year for an on-street parking permit - all going straight to the treasury.

The latter two tick all the boxes for Labour voters demanding "sticks" to promote active travel, and punishment of car drivers.

Why are you penalizing road users who already pay a lot of tax on fuel duty?
What about doctors, nurses and other shift workers who don't have public transport for night shifts etc are you going to penalize them?

Are you suggesting 22 miles is a sensible distance for me to get to work via Active transport or should I spend 2 hours getting multiple trains and buses to and from work?

When there is a sensible public transport option to work I will take it but there isn't

 

[duffield]

Or, erm, a train to... anywhere... given that most train drivers do and will forever more use a car to get to work. Or any rail infrastructure for them to run on, given that building and maintaining it is heavily dependent on road transport.

Good luck with getting some food to eat so you don't starve, or someone to build you a home to shelter in or having some working energy infrastructure so you don't freeze to death without ubiquitous road transport, pretty much in perpetuity.

It's possible to be supportive of rail transport in the limited circumstances where it makes some kind of sense without resorting to bizarre delusions that road transport can end up as some demonised fringe activity. It is, and will remain, essential to an even basically functioning country.

I'm pretty much a rail nut and think that *new* roads should almost never be built (except maybe stuff like the roads serving a whole new housing or industrial estate), but even I think that potholes need fixing. The state of the road outside my house is appalling - and it's the "A" road from the city centre to the motorway! And potholes are particularly dangerous to cyclists, who we're supposed to be encouraging.

 

[Bikeman78]

If you express it on a per traveller-km basis, public spending on rail is over 10 times higher than on roads.

Given that road maintenance has been all but abandoned, this does not surprise me.

 

[PGAT]

I don’t even know how potholes are comparable to railways. The government doesn’t pay directly to maintain the road, that comes from the council’s pot of money, while new railway projects are often heavily dependent on government funding

 

[Bikeman78]

It’s nonsense to “fix” them they way it is too often done. Unfortunately, target-driven culture means it is “better” to bodge 20 potholes that reappear within 6 months than to do 10 properly (or indeed to maintain roads such that potholes don’t appear at all - after all then there’d be no chance to boast about repairing them). We used to make fun of Eastern European countries for their slavish adherence to meaningless targets….

Exactly the point I made to my MP recently. If the road is repaired properly, I shouldn't be able to feel where the hole was. Most of the repairs are terrible, and fail within days. Clearly no one ever inspects the work.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Exactly the point I made to my MP recently. If the road is repaired properly, I shouldn't be able to feel where the hole was. Most of the repairs are terrible, and fail within days. Clearly no one ever inspects the work.

The utilities are the worst culprits with shoddy reinstatement that sinks down and leaves the road in a very dangerous state.