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12m ago
12.25 BST
Sunak confirms Manchester leg of Hs2 being scrapped, with 'every single penny' from £36bn going on other transport projects
Sunak confirms he is scrapping the Manchester leg of HS2.
When the facts change, it is important to change policy.
He says this will free up £36bn – and every single penny will be spent on “hundreds of new transport projects in the north and the Midlands and across the country”.
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He's going to allow them to build houses on the Euston leg, ensuring the line to Euston can never be completed
"hundreds of new transport projects" == more roads
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3/ We will complete the line from Birmingham to Euston but the HS2 management won't be responsible for the Euston site.
There must be accountability for the mistakes made.
Instead, we will create a Euston development zone with thousands of new homes and business opportunities.
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https://twitter.com/rishisunak/status/1709530662644903961
Update
"Euston development zone"
What's he going to do? Remove all the sidings and half the platforms, to leave a fragile service?
@neddie I reckon the railway is safe, but the Tories will cut sweet deals with their developer mates for central London development sites that are needed for HS2 construction but not the actual railway.
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The carbon emissions reduction case for HS2 was never favourable – it will be a net contributor to emissions over its 120-year lifespan, according to its own data – but cancelling the new line north of Birmingham weakens the hope that a national high-speed rail network will cut flights between major cities.
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There appear to be 7 direct flights daily between Manchester and London on weekdays. Meanwhile I counted 33 between Edinburgh and London airports. Hmmm
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Cancelling HS2 is only the start of the Conservatives’ Great Train Robbery
Ditching the Birmingham-to-Manchester leg of HS2 will give embattled Tories a chance to cheer about cost savings – but rail improvements across the north can’t be delivered without it, writes Christian Wolmar
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Of course it'll be really great for flight reduction when every train south to London is no faster than it was half a century earlier, chock full or desperately expensive (or most likely both) and the motorways are all clogged because we gave up on the only major plan to increase north-south capacity at its worst bottlenecks.
I guarantee that HS2 will not reduce any flights, nor any amount of driving, unless they tax the b-jesus out of them (which they won't).
HS2 will induce new and previously unviable journeys. The motorways will remain full, since driving is a "gas that expands to fill the available volume". And flights will continue to fill up, the more they lay on and the cheaper they become.
Even the HS2 designers admit that the project won't "pay back*" any carbon for 120 years!
Like I say, if we want to solve the existential crisis, we need to make do with what we have, and stop burning stuff.
*impossible to pay-back carbon
if we want to solve the existential crisis, we need to make do with what we have, and stop burning stuff.
Yes.
https://indi.ca/why-we-need-to-stop-fighting-climate-change/
I think it's a big sunk-cost fallacy. The system can't go back without collapsing, so it goes forward to collapse later
Wow!
I suppose the issue with “making do with what we have” means we won’t be able to feed the war-machine. Which in turn means that hostile forces will come and take what we “have”, what we are “making do with”
It's a consistent position to simply oppose all new development but please don't quote the 120 years line - it just isn't true. How can it be? If it were remotely true the extensive European high speed network would be an unmitigated climate disaster. It is not.
Either way, I can guarantee the government's alternative programme will be much, much worse.
HS2 will only ever add carbon to the atmosphere. It can never take it away.
We cannot build our way out of climate disaster
What's the best zero carbon way of buying a bike?
You don't buy the bike. You make do with the billions of bikes we already have.
I admit that a miniscule amount of carbon needs to be emitted to maintain those bikes, but then the planet is capable of absorbing a miniscule amount of carbon.
One for the "technically correct" pile I'm afraid. We're in a bad situation, and at the point of least-worst options; which is more likely, that people(and through them, governments) can be persuaded that taxing/regulating things like flight and cars and fossil fuelled grids is a good thing if adequate alternatives are put in place, or that people(and through them, governments) can be persuaded that taking those steps is a good thing with no alternatives put in place at all, requiring a big drop in living standards in the developed world and a prohibition on the developing world ever reaching those heights of quality of life?
In some cases we *must* "build our way out of climate disaster" because telling people that you're taking away all their conveniences and amenities and giving nothing in return bar a promise that doing so will fix the world after they and their children are already long dead - since, let's be real, we're going to be dealing with 1.5C+ for the foreseeable regardless of what mitigation scenario we use - is simply a recipe for failure, because you'll never persuade a sufficient majority to accept it and I don't know about you but I don't fancy eco-fascism any more than the other flavours.
Stopping new road building? Perfectly rational. Regulating the <rule2> out of new construction of buildings to make eco-retrofits of existing structures the more appealing option? Arguably a requirement. But saying "we just have to stop building anything" is just hollow puritanism. People need to travel *somehow*, and if we want to seriously restrict cars and air travel then there has to be *some* alternative - in cities that's bikes and mass transit, intercity that has to be rail, and the UK's rail network as-is simply isn't up to the task. Without HS2 as envisioned originally, adding speed and capacity on the other lines is going to be nigh on impossible.
To put it in cycling terms: you can put in all the LTNs you like, eventually the main roads need to be addressed or you don't have a viable overall network.
I never said anything about the practicalities of “making do”, I’m merely pointing out what has to happen if people genuinely want to avert the existential crisis.
So you can shoot the messenger, and use right-wing language like “eco-fascism”, as much as you like, but that won’t change the physics of the situation.
@neddie - is this still valid? Shows that energy consumption in Sweden is four planets. UKGB two and a half.
https://www.overshootday.org/how-many-earths-or-countries-do-we-need/
On HS/TGV rail - France legislated against internal flights. Will find link. (Edit - @neddie maybe has.) HS2 had knock on benefits for line capacity so although you could argue it's only for elite it could have benefited towns in England.
Sunak's speech was TikTok gold. I felt it was quite significant in a worrying quite of way. His wife's intro and then him appearing - both exuding youth, wealth and confidence. Robert Peston seems to be a bit of a fan and had inside track on the whole 're-launch of the re-launch' strategy. It was a TV moment really and I think media (particularly in Southern England) likes the whole emptiness of it. Even Henry Hill of Conservative Home commented that it was amazing Sunak missed out housing.
The whole spiel though was about England really and the direction that country is set on as I doubt the likely Labour victory in the by election here will herald any shift in policy regarding driving as the primary way to get around. (Modern population = drivers and people that aren't drivers yet kind of mood).
The claim that The United Kingdom (UK) of Northern Ireland (semi EU-UK) is the most amazing multinational state was another thing - even though transport infrastructure is devolved. The subsequent claim that GB&NI is also multicultural with little racism was really stretching things. Was this just to confuse those that support Braverman? He could of course backed up the democratic statesmanlike credentials by name checking Humza Yousaf and saying how the 'bad governments'of the Westminster and Holyrood really need to work together. Instead he inferred that a past FM was 'maybe going down'.
This from a man that has been found guilty of Covid breaches and can't find his WhatsApp messages.
Not surprisingly many voters are turned off.
On rails...
Guy from SRA reminded people that the £36bn has to be borrowed. There's a cost too for cancellation (Like the ferries or many defence projects).
Each of the new projects needs to be planned and we all know how long that takes! In the end potholes will be filled. Whether they are filled at high speed remains to be seen! We of course could export our world leading pothole filling technology to other countries. :-)
France have not legislated against internal flights in any meaningful way. The legislation removed something like 4 flights a day.
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Sunak’s ‘spiteful’ sale of land intended for HS2 dashes hopes of revival
Prime minister’s move criticised as ‘salting the earth’ so Birmingham-Crewe line cannot be built
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@neddie And I'm pointing what has to happen if we *actually* want to have a shot of doing so, rather than just wringing our hands doing nothing because the absolute best case scenario is an impractical fantasy. Hence my use of the "right wing" term eco-fascism, ie the only political ideology that could successfully implement solutions on the level of "stop building all infrastructure" because you'll never get permission for that in a democracy.
You can tell people their lives have to change and win the argument, but if you expect to tell them their lives are doing to get a lot worse, now, immediately, in obvious and impactful ways in order to avert a crisis that still isn't "real" in a core-emotional way even for many of the people who believe it's happening and will be bad, then all you're doing is ignoring the political reality of the situation.
I'm by no means arguing for the status quo, we could be going *much* further than any of the mainstream UK parties are advocating, but taking the line you are is functionally a cry to do nothing at all. HS2 is a great example, in fact, the whole argument in microcosm - not a perfect solution, but one that could have had real benefits as part of a broader strategy, and we *told* fellow greens who opposed it on puritanical grounds that *in practice* they were enabling higher carbon alternatives, and what's happened? All the embodied carbon in the sections of line already built - most of which were the most cost and carbon intensive of the whole route - is now wasted; most of the "savings" from HS2 are being spent on new roadbuilding; most of the land that was purchased for the remainder of the route will be sold to volume housebuilder cronies of the Tory party to build car-centric developments; the Euston terminus will only be built on a reduced scale with private money meaning more massive carbon-intensive office blocks or luxury apartment buildings.
*slow clap* a great victory for the environment, to be sure.
@paddyirish, I could do that for them cheaper.
Google suggests you could do it for £4.60 if you are in Manchester.
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There is now concern among experts that the plan to allow HS2 trains to continue to Manchester on existing lines, as outlined by the former transport secretary Grant Shapps before Sunak’s conference speech, could adversely affect the service on the crowded west coast mainline north of Birmingham.
The longest Pendolino trains on the much-criticised Avanti service have 607 seats and can travel at speeds of up to 125mph due to their tilting mechanism. However, HS2 trains, which cannot tilt, would be limited to 110mph under current restrictions.
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HS2: announced transport projects were just ‘examples’, says minister
Documents detailing projects to be funded with savings from scrapping HS2 deleted from government website
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