Anti-HS2 campaigners have confirmed that they will make two court bids to try and halt the high speed rail project.
The HS2 Action Alliance is seeking two judicial reviews into the government’s handling of the £33bn project.
One deals with environmental issues, and the other is about ‘fighting for a fair deal for compensation’.
The group said that in both cases, the ‘government failed to follow the proper processes required’.
The HS2 project was given the official go-ahead by the government in January, with construction likely to start in 2016.
The HS2 Actions Alliance said ‘thousands of ordinary people in communities from London to Staffordshire and beyond’ had raised the six figure sum needed to proceed with the court bids.
The group said ‘people are frustrated that the government are not listening and are joining together to fight this unacceptable waste of taxpayer’s money’.
It looks to me that they are just nit-picking and what they really oppose is the entire principle of HS2. It should not be forgotten that proposed Route 3 was published in early February 2010, i.e. more than 3 months before the General Election in May that year.
All 3 main political parties included support for HSR in their 2010 election manifestos, and they were supported by more than 26 million voters at the ballot box.
You build a 100mile straight
piece of track from Euston to Curzon St which is a dead end station and was
opened in 1838 and closed in 1854. The railway station is still inconveniently
located on the eastern edge of Birmingham city centre and that’s why its use as
a passenger station was short-lived.
So, you get to Curzon St and you want to go to Manchester and the
North so, you have to get to New St to continue your journey. From the time you arrive at Curzon St and
get to New St and Continue your journey I don’t think much time will be saved
in the long run. Moore St’s the nearest
then New St which the planners say it could be possible to have a people
carrier from C/St to N/St. I haven’t
seen any plans but I still think it’s wrong to plough through our Beautiful
country side and the heartache of the villagers that it’s going to cause just
for 100 miles of straight track. We’ve
already got two links from London to B’ham.
It could be cheaper to electrify and up grade from Paddy to Brummigam
Snow Hill catch the tram to an extended link into W’ton Stn.
Beeching did a lot of damage
to our railway network he’d got no idea about how railways were run after all
he was the chairman of I.C.I at the time.
An example of his ignorence
was when he closed the cannock line to passenger traffic when he axed that line
the trains where full. People who lived
in Rugely and worked in brum had to either move home to keep their job or if
they chose not to move they lost their job.
The line his now back to normal passenger traffic after years of
petitions and yes the trains are still full.
I could write a book about Beeching and his hencemen but I’ll just say
when he was closing our system down the yanks were opening up previous stations
and railroad at great expense. Sound
familier? Well it should because that’s just what we’ve had to do since
Beechings ignorence of our raiway system.
It’s still possible to reopen some of those broken links and try to put
right what Beeching ruined. Having said
all this Beeching can’t be blamed for the closing of lines over the last 20+
yrs.
A good example of this blind stupidity is the
line from Walsall to Dudley/Stourbridge now there’s talk about it reopening and
at what cost I ask you?
I’m all for investing in rail – but not the HS2
THE proposal to construct HS2 has generated a lively
debate and differing opinions. The
evidence has been presented in a way that has tried to convince the reader that
this huge expensive project is justifiable at any price. There is also a disturbing trend that can be
interpreted to suggest that opponents of this massive scheme are to be regarded
as shortsighted dinosaurs that might consider the likes of Dr Beeching and
Jeremy Clarkson to be their heroes. Far
from being a petrol head I am totally in favour of investing in our fragmented
railways.
As a retired railwayman I am not in favour of HS2. Those in favour of the scheme have
repeatedly cited a desperate need for more capacity. They say that it is already at full capacity and will not be able
to handle the rise in traffic forecast in the coming years. Well this could be said of most routes
radiating from London. If this were the
main issue for the HS2 then maybe the widening of the existing west coast
mainline (WCML) would make serious consideration. This surely prove to be a less expensive option than to build
from scratch this completely new railway exceeding 100 miles in length and to much
higher continental design specification.
It is most likely that trains that run on HS2 will generate an exclusive
additional service between London and Birmingham that will monopolise available
pathways very much as we see already on HS1 Euro star and the Southeastern
Javelin services. As a consequence this
business is almost certain to fail to offload any existing traffic from the
WCML by means of route sharing, save perhaps for some high speed freight services
and perhaps a few prestige West Coast passenger services. With sparsity of stations envisaged on this
proposed line it can hardly be considered to benefit the communities it will
divide. The problem with high speed rail is that business can only be generated
at each extremity of such routes, even if the HS2 was able to benefit the
communities it will carve through, I care about our environment and I fail to
see anyone indirectly affected or not can be insensitive towards the prospect
of further substantial erosion of on our ever decreasing green belt. “I could
go on”. Just why is it that speed as
become such a desirable commodity?
It amazes me how government can earmark any amount of
money guaranteed, just so that the UK can appear to be keeping up with our
international counterparts.