A spokesman for Centro, the region’s transport authority, said: “Research already shows that HS2 will bring substantial economic benefits to the West Midlands in terms of 22,000 new jobs and a £1.5 billion a year boost to the regional economy.
“This new report shows how it will also allow major enhancements to the region’s existing rail network, benefitting towns like Lichfield, Tamworth, Nuneaton, Rugby and Kenilworth.
“This is in stark contrast to not building HS2 which would lead to a very real risk of local and regional services being pushed off the West Coast Main Line to make way for more profitable inter-city services. That would hit hundreds of thousands of regional commuters, damaging local economies and stifling economic growth and job creation.
“We have to build a new railway to meet future demand because the West Coast Main Line will reach full capacity in the mid 2020s. It would therefore be short-sighted and a lost opportunity not to make that new route high speed and thereby reap all the extra benefits that such a railway line would bring in terms of economic regeneration, job creation, released rail capacity and shorter journey times. Indeed, the extra cost of making the new line high speed compared to building a conventional rail line is relatively small.”
What rubbish. Who is going to fund this?the Chancellor thinks it is 8,000 jobs KPMG thinks the higher figure. This discrepency needs to be nailed is it the Treasury or a hired firm of accountantsnCentro has already spent a large sum of money contributing to the pro_HS2 lobby so they are hardly impartial contributors to the debate.nWhat we need is a truely Impartial view, we have asked for this of the SoS by way of IFS and the OBR these requests have been turned down.Conclusions on a postcrd please.nRoger Waller
This railway is a complete waste of money , at a cost of u00a31500 to every ratepayer in the country this equates to over u00a3300 million to Northamptonshire where I live. Our county is facing devasting cuts including losing all our rural bus services to fund this white elephant which will bring no benefit to residents in Northamtonshire only misery as their homes and lives and beautiful countriside are blighted .
It beggars belief that ‘they’ try to sell HS2 to the country by suggesting it will make other rail services better? No it won’t. Once HS2 gets underway all the available money for transport schemes will be sucked up by the biggest infrastructure money drain this millennium (aka HS2!). nWouldn’t it be wise economics to use a fraction of the cost of HS2 to upgrade the current rail services from Birmingham to London and then use the remainder of the money (if u00a334bn is really burning a hole in Osborneu2019s pocket?) keeping front line police on our streets, putting nurses and midwives into hospitals, giving students an affordable education and supporting families when they fall on hard times?nSurely managing crime on our streets, educating our young people, protecting the nationu2019s health and well being and supporting those in need more about the Big(ger) Society?n
People need jobs NOW, the economy needs a boost NOW especially in view of the cuts. Logic says solve the problem by developing the WCML at a fraction of the price and which can be started NOW. HS2 is not needed. We’ve had High Speed Rail since the mid 70s, but the DfT haven’t supported it, seen it through or developed what we’ve got. They could start that NOW and give people jobs NOW. Their short franchises and their strangle hold on the franchise operators have created the problems. Pandelinos sitting in sheds!!! nA clean sheet will not stop the DfT bad practices, it will just cost the tax payer money they have not got.
There are so many misconceptions about this project which need to be cleared up the cost of the line between Birmingham and London is expected to cost around u00a315billion (not 32). It will cost u00a332 billion to get it up to Leeds and Manchester. This also does not require upfront payment but instead the overall cost will be spread out over 10 to 15 years bringing it down to a much more manageable cost.nnUpgrading existing infrastructure is simply not worth it, it doubles the cost, doubles the inconvenience caused to passengers and provides very little benefits. The French realised this decades ago and rather than upgrading existing lines they simply build new high speed ones, look at the huge cost involve din upgrading the WCML.nnWe do need to continue investment in all forms of transport whether it be roads, rail, ports and airports. Greengauge are accurately reporting that local services will improve as the WCML will simply have less intercity trains, which at the moment whizz past small local stations only stopping at the bigger ones (common sesne really). nnThe problem with this project is that there are so many myths and lies being thrown round by the people living in the Chilterns.
There are comments that here we should upgrade the WCML instead. WCML cannot be upgraded further to make it faster without building a new alignment. The deviating route with sharp curves when originally built was not suited to high speed, Even achieving 125mph has been problematic not to mention extremely expensive, and that is only now on part of the route. Indeed it would have been lower cost and economically better not to mention a lot quicker to build a new railway line than upgrade the WCML last time. Trying to do this and keep it open resulted in it costing around eight times the more and taking four times as long, just to achieve a slight improvement.nnA new line will accommodate the existing pendolinos which are capable of higher speeds than currently the WCML line will allow.nnWe should have done this last time -bite the bullet and build a new line, there will be jobs created in the planning, design phase, construction, and building plus operation – just like any other scheme. Why is every other country building high speed lines even china yet we are so against this. We used to lead the wold in technology and achievements, but attitude to changes and improvements these days is so bad we will become a 3rd world soon.