HS2 Budget: £40bn

OldFartPlumber

I don`t give a toss about HS2 as long as it avoids Sussex LOL

PaulF81

Spend 40 billion on a railway, you have a railway. Spend hundreds of billions on an NHS, and you have lots of old people living longer with poor quality of life, costing the state a fortune in pensions provision and nothing to show for it.

CLAPTON

PaulF81 wrote: »

Spend 40 billion on a railway, you have a railway. Spend hundreds of billions on an NHS, and you have lots of old people living longer with poor quality of life, costing the state a fortune in pensions provision and nothing to show for it.

the certainty is, that after spending 40 billion we won't have railway

zagubov

!!!!!!, you're arguing like it's debatable we should still have a railway system at all. Maybe them new-fangled automobiles will get us from place to place without knackering the planet.

At this rate of aping the US way of doing things we'll be lucky to still have pavements to walk on. Seriously, some major US cities don't bother with them.

oops you'll mean we don't need sidewalks. Cos the US way's the only way.

There's 200 countries out there probably each one doing something better than us. Let's get some more role models, not just the ones that fill our media.

.

kabayiri

If I can see an image of someone so clearly that it feels like they are in the room, do I have to physically be in the same room ?

If 3D printers can allow me to work on prototype physical products with someone hundreds of miles away, as though we were on neighbouring work benches, do we need to meet ? 3D printing technology has the potential to transform the way we view disposable product.

We have to ask ourselves what working in the year 2025/2030 will be like, before committing to £40bn to £100bn spend on a train which will save modest times on journeys.

Redirecting this level of spend could make us pioneers in the area of remote working. To show true ambition you need to project the needs which will be present in 20 or 30 years time.

CLAPTON

kabayiri wrote: »

If I can see an image of someone so clearly that it feels like they are in the room, do I have to physically be in the same room ?

If 3D printers can allow me to work on prototype physical products with someone hundreds of miles away, as though we were on neighbouring work benches, do we need to meet ? 3D printing technology has the potential to transform the way we view disposable product.

We have to ask ourselves what working in the year 2025/2030 will be like, before committing to £40bn to £100bn spend on a train which will save modest times on journeys.

Redirecting this level of spend could make us pioneers in the area of remote working. To show true ambition you need to project the needs which will be present in 20 or 30 years time.

governments trying to project 20-30 years ahead always get it wrong

very few things need such lead times except of course where government prevent progress

CLAPTON

once upon a time there was a very green leader of the opposition

he wanted to walk with polar bears and generally save the planet

also it was electorally good at the time to oppose the third runway at Heathrow (even though it required no public money as it is privately owned)

so to solve the capacity shortfall he invented a new high speed railway

so that's 40 billion just because a man doesn't know when he was wrong.

packetlos

The WCML upgrade was predicted to cost £2Bn, it actually cost £8Bn and caused massive disruption and is already nearly full again. It is not about journey times, it is about capacity and if you are going to spend that much money it might as well be on a new high speed line.

[Deleted User]

Generali wrote: »

Social housing isn't infrastructure. Infrastructure is roads, utilities provision, airports etc.

Have you looked at the cost benefit analysis for this project? (link)

The benefits to the country are estimated at about £130,000,000,000 and the revenues from running the service at about £100,000,000,000 with the costs of building, maintaining and running the service put at £190,000,000,000.

This also needs to be put into a strategic context in that the Government wants to upgrade more rail to run at higher speeds. Connecting more high speed rail to this would create network benefits which means future projects get even more benefits.

The obvious point to be made is that the project is meant to deliver a financial loss. I guess for believers like yourself in big Government the whole point of Government sponsored infrastructure is that you can build something taking the wider economic benefits into account.

I still think that house building is infrastucture,how ever you dress up other spending we need to build a million homes for the social sector and soon,good for cooling down the housing market,creating jobs/skills at many levels and of course providing good housing for the masses
spending billion after billion on rail is like something out of the 19th c.

zagubov

I'm pretty sure we need to increase rail transport from a whole lot of angles for freight, commuter transport and high-speed long-distance transport.

In a rapidly-degrading environment the economic costs must be made affordable or else we need to radically overhaul the economy to make it so.

We can't be "wealthy" in a ruined environment. And I don't doubt we could ruin the world big-time.

It's a bit like Winston Churchill telling Britain in WWII "we are under threat from Germany and I've just checked the accounts and we can't afford to survive so let's have suggestions on how to surrender as economically as possible"