Manchester and Brum have come up with a plan to save HS2, by building a cheaper, slower line between Staffordshire and Manchester.
It seems like a great idea, after the humiliating collapse of the original scheme, announced by Rushi Sunak in Manchester, no less.
It is a great shame that the original scheme was so mismanaged by the Tories that it went well over the budget. A lot of which was totally wasted on tunnels and cuttings designed to placate Tory MPs in the South of England.
The new scheme will be slower and cheaper but at least it will be built, the current HS2 doesn’t reach central London, has a totally wasted terminal in Birmingham and then cannot run onto Manchester because the stations and track are not up to it.
A more embarrassing mess it is harder to imagine, 200 years after giving the world the railway and we can’t join up our three most important cities by track. Let alone the spur lines to Yorkshire which would have been the greatest act of levelling up.
Surely we can finish this project, even if it is a pale imitation of its original plan.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
By Jonty Bloom Media
This is a typical example of the lack of evidence based planning and budgeting that the U.K. has suffered over decades. It is perhaps glib to criticise the chopping and changing as all governments have been guilty to some extent. There was no proper assessment of routing, need and specification by the last Labour government it was an Andrew Adonis scheme on the back of an envelope. Major transport schemes suffer from this and programme and cost always go out of the window. But it is clear now that‘something must be done’ even my phone knew what I was about to type. So let’s get on with something and don’t forget just linking the midlands and Manchester is but a minor part of a much bigger transport PLAN.