Why is the taxpayer paying for HS2?

Greg Hook

Yes a ridiculous idea, is it two ridiculous’s make a right or is it ridiculous idea that is becoming a ridiculous reality by more ridiculous politicians.  

Ridiculous Idea by Labour, so ridiculous the Conservatives and coalition partners think its great.   Better hope none of them get in next May, who votes for ridiculous parties with ridiculous ideas

EarthRod

Does the North Of England stop at Leeds?

gibbsy

Building HS2 would be comparable to the government funding expansion of the broadband network, but instead of boosting rural villages from 2mb to the national average, investing it in boosting BT infinity customers from 80 to 200 Mb.

fluxo

London - Leeds by train currently takes about 2 hours 12 minutes.
London - Leeds by HS2 is estimated to take 1 hour 22 minutes.

A saving of 50 minutes journey time at a cost of £50 billion. There is hidden agenda behind this project because it doesn't make any financial sense.

By air London - Leeds takes 1 hour.

Sve

These time saving claims are made even worse as the Government completely 'forgot' to base it on the actual saving that will be coming anyway in 2019 when the new fleet of 140mph Hitachi trains arrive, so the time saving between what we would have in 2019 and the HS2 is much less.

So to follow on from IronGiant's analogy, it would be like spending £50billion to upgrade broadband from 80Mb to 100Mb.

gibbsy

Right, good call.

From what I've read the London - Leeds journey time could potentially be cut by about 18 minutes using the Hitachi trains.

fluxo

Could we argue that HS2 goes extra-terrestrial because Life on Mars was set in Manchester?

EarthRod

That's right, I like your logic - very sensible.

Mr Cameron would like to hire you as an adviser, if you're interested.

Rasczak

I have to say one of the best things about the devolution here in Scotland has been the ending of tolls on the Erskine, Tay and Forth Road Bridges. Unfortunately many people in England don't have a clue at how much hassle such tolls can have on an area - often because they fail to understand the scale of the geographical challenge associated with it ("what's a little River, just like the Thames isn't it?") - so unless the Welsh Parliament can deal with it, you have no hope getting anything useful out of Westminster on this front.

IronGiant

Are you sure?

Category:Toll bridges in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

While I've never been over a toll bridge or an ex-toll bridge in Scotland I have been over plenty in England and Wales. And two bloody big ones between the two countries