Campaign grows to switch the building of HS2 station to Sheffield city

[sadbrewer]

39 minutes ago, altus said:

Of course there were NIMBYs around stopping things getting constructed during the railway boom - Anna B gave an example of one. It wasn't some far sighted visionary MPs that allowed the railways to be built, it was that the people most affected didn't have the vote and so could be safely ignored. That the MPs were making laws that they would personally benefit from didn't hurt either.

 

Whilst I think we can sometimes be a bit too precious about protecting things in this country, those wanting to build things can be too miserly when it comes to compensating those affected. e.g. People would object far less about a project needing to knock their house down if they were offered far above the market rate their house would have had rather than something that barely matches it. The same goes for destroying habitats. Just think how much smoother and quicker projects would go if instead of taking the attitude of 'what's the minimum we can get away with' developers thought 'what can we do to ease/speed the approval'.

In Mexborough, which is set to lose up to 200 homes and businesses, they consistently undervalued properties but kept it secret via non disclosure gagging orders that prevented neighbours from knowing what others had accepted, when the prices were finally shown by The Land Registry , neighbours in identical homes had been pressured to accept differences of over 10k on a 95k townhouse.

[altus]

36 minutes ago, ECCOnoob said:

That's all well and good, but it comes back to the money problem I referred to earlier.

 

They could pay well above market rate to compensate those losing their homes. They could pay vast amounts of money to find alternatives to minimise disruption to the environment but of course by doing so increases the overall cost. Given that many of these projects are funded solely or a large majority by public purse we can all know what the reaction is going to be by the masses if a project could have been done for X but instead they spend Y.   It's been complained about this very moment.

 

In my opinion just shows another example of people demanding the world and expecting to pay peanuts. Can't have both ways.

The railway builders in the 19th century took the attitude that they'd pay what they had to to get the line built. There were railways built in tunnels solely because that's the only way the landowner would only allow it to be built across their land. There were many vanity stations around the network because the landowner said you can only build on my land of you build me a station. e.g. Corrour station is a ten mile walk on a hill track to the nearest public road, although there's a hunting lodge closer, despite being so remote this the station has direct trains to London.

 

In the past they did pay well above the market rate to compensate land owners and they did pay vast amounts of money to find alternatives to minimise the disruption to the environment. Complain all you like about the problems and costs of building projects now but at least try doing a vaguely fair comparison.

[butlers]

Corrour.

12.20 into clip.

 

 

 

[abbeyedges]

4 hours ago, Anna B said:

Sheffield is something of a backwater because the Duke of Norfolk refused to have the railway track over his land back in the 1830's the early days of railways. Consequently the line went via Doncaster and all the railway engineering went there. 

Beeching didn't help with all the lines he cut in the 1960's. 

 

It looks like HS2 will never get past Birmingham anyway. If it ever reaches Sheffield (as a continuous line rather than an offshoot) it will take so long it will probably be ancient technology and everyone will have moved onto a hyperloop system or somesuch.....

 

Indeed. What is wrong with this country that everything is hugely priced and  moves at a snails pace? 

It will get past Birmingham. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if they by pass Brum in order to make sure it reaches the government's 'pet' city - Manchester.

 

They will move heaven and earth to make sure the line reaches Manchester. To many in governement the Northern Powerhouse is actually seeing Manchester getting all the investment. 

[Jeffrey Shaw]

As to NIMBYs- the problem predated the Great Railways Era. Even canals were resited, a century before that!

[Andy C]

The London-Birmingham section is already under construction and the Birmingham-Manchester section is due to get the go ahead any time soon.

 

On the other hand the Birmingham-Leeds leg appears to have been postponed if not cancelled. The government is due to publish a report later this year regarding investment in the rail network around the East Midlands, Yorkshire and North East and they are likely to throw a few crumbs from the table our way but it feels like this is the first big cut in government spending on transport.

 

HS2 eastern leg building a new main line from Birmingham to Leeds would have created valuable extra capacity - the Cross Country trains could run on the new high speed line as well as Leeds-London services freeing up capacity on the existing lines for more regional trains and freight - and it is unlikely we are going to see anything near that benefit with any investment that does happen. I wouldn't be surprised to actually see service cuts and fares increases as the government claws back money spent on Covid funding with any investment in electrification requiring a business case of lowering operating costs.

[1978]

2 hours ago, Andy C said:

The London-Birmingham section is already under construction and the Birmingham-Manchester section is due to get the go ahead any time soon.

 

On the other hand the Birmingham-Leeds leg appears to have been postponed if not cancelled. The government is due to publish a report later this year regarding investment in the rail network around the East Midlands, Yorkshire and North East and they are likely to throw a few crumbs from the table our way but it feels like this is the first big cut in government spending on transport.

 

HS2 eastern leg building a new main line from Birmingham to Leeds would have created valuable extra capacity - the Cross Country trains could run on the new high speed line as well as Leeds-London services freeing up capacity on the existing lines for more regional trains and freight - and it is unlikely we are going to see anything near that benefit with any investment that does happen. I wouldn't be surprised to actually see service cuts and fares increases as the government claws back money spent on Covid funding with any investment in electrification requiring a business case of lowering operating costs.

The likely announcement will be spun as good news - electrifying the MML to Sheffield by 2030 (meaning  2035, then 2040) and pausing HS2 east until reassessment when Covid outcomes are clearer.

 

Can kicked down the road until next Parliament (filed  with projects like postponed Heathrow 3rd runway). 

[BigAl1]

19 hours ago, sadbrewer said:

In Mexborough, which is set to lose up to 200 homes and businesses, they consistently undervalued properties but kept it secret via non disclosure gagging orders that prevented neighbours from knowing what others had accepted, when the prices were finally shown by The Land Registry , neighbours in identical homes had been pressured to accept differences of over 10k on a 95k townhouse.

scandalous there is no way gagging orders should have ever been used

[BigAl1]

15 hours ago, Andy C said:

 

 

HS2 eastern leg building a new main line from Birmingham to Leeds would have created valuable extra capacity - the Cross Country trains could run on the new high speed line as well as Leeds-London services freeing up capacity on the existing lines for more regional trains and freight - and it is unlikely we are going to see anything near that benefit with any investment that does happen. I wouldn't be surprised to actually see service cuts and fares increases as the government claws back money spent on Covid funding with any investment in electrification requiring a business case of lowering operating costs.

Unfortunately you are probably correct in fares increase and cuts in services but all that will do is make it even harder to find a business case to put up the wires. One day the government will learn that increasing fares does not automatically  lead to an increase in revenue (price sensitivity ) and may well have the opposite effect. In these post covid times this is almost a given as many commuters will prefer to work from home or go to the office a couple of days a week/month and for leisure higher fares + lower frequencies is guaranteed to suppress demand

[Bilge]

Well that was all a waste of money, time and effort.

 

This is just the latest example of the Tories 'levelling up' that the gullible voted for. You lot in Sheff and elsewhere can make do and mend.