Iwould like to see hs2 shelved and the billions saved used to help the economy.
In a recession it is ridiculous to waste billions duplicating existing routes just to shave a bit of time off journeys.
The cost is bound to double or more and £ 32 billion is a lot to squander in a recession,apparently the treasury are having second thoughts.
Oh dear. Not again.
That money is not sitting in a high interest account waiting to spent on HS2
or building a load of new hospitals.
The money invested will pay for a lot of jobs (pay to people who will in turn pay tax on it, and hopefully spend the rest of the money and boost the economy elsewhere - or invest in savings, which might boost pension pots etc).
The project will then do things like take vehicles off roads (thus, as a driver, I'm happy for things like HS2 if it makes the motorways a bit easier to drive on) and boost the economy in a multitude of different ways.
As for the conclusion that it will definitely overspend.. HS1 didn't. When you look at certain projects, like the Jubilee line extension ahead of the opening of the dome, the Olympics, building Wembley Stadium etc - they all had time critical deadlines. The companies can easily be held to ransom for things like this, demanding pay rises and threatening strikes where possible.
I'd hope that HS2 won't be seen to be the same time critical job and so we won't see such opportunism to bump up charges. I hope that HS1 is proof of this, as well as the many other large projects completed on time and on budget. How many large office blocks, shopping centres, bridges, airports and the like are always ending up having cost double?
The 'it will end up costing a gazillion pounds of tax payers money that could be used to build schools and hospitals, and fund more police officers to catch rapists' is a rather typical argument against HS2, but I think it's - frankly - b**locks!!
