You get this sharp intake of breath when you approach people about HS2,” says Kate Lamble, the presenter of a new Radio 4 series, Derailed: the Story of HS2. “They’re either people who have been personally affected and it’s been dominating their lives for over a decade, or it’s politicians for whom it was all important for a very brief period a long time ago. For many it’s been emotionally devastating.”
Political instability and ephemeral ministers are, no surprise, key factors in the series. As it stands today, when “High Speed 2” is completed – at a date yet to be set – it will be Britain’s second purpose-built, high-speed railway after the London link to the Channel Tunnel (aka HS1) and will run between Birmingham and London. The original idea, conceived in 2009 under Gordon Brown, was to extend HS2 to Manchester and Leeds but this has since been cancelled.
“As with Grenfell Tower,” says Lamble, who won an Aria award for her in-depth coverage of that Inquiry, “it’s a long, involved story that hasn’t really translated in the news. In Grenfell, the news is ‘it’s the cladding’ and for HS2, ‘it’s the cost’. The complexities and what it tells us about how the country is run never get picked up.”
Jonathan Loescher took Lamble to see the garden he tended near where his house used to stand in Staffordshire before it was demolished. Work has since been halted on that section of the line.
In other words, local considerations had to be addressed by central government. “They had to get 8,000 additional permissions as major as increasing the number of tunnels and as trivial as moving a water fountain.” Budgets and deadlines have proved impossible to manage; HS2 has become shorthand for our inability to think big and deliver infrastructure.
Lamble disagrees. “Yes, I was surprised the transport secretary didn’t know which kind of planning permission he was getting, but it also speaks to a bigger question about what kind of Britain we want to live in? We live on a small, densely populated, property-owning democratic island and there are consequences. We can’t cut through empty fields or override public opposition in the way that a centralised power like China chooses to, but we have done big builds like HS1 and some new nuclear sites. Those who still support HS2 suggest that when it opens it will be a success and people will forget about the overspend and delay.”
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Off the rails )
Also on site :