General Chat

Before this Government even consider any new, costly projects, surely they should complete the one's they've started.
Apart from the Garden Bridge costing us £37 million for nothing, HS2 which will cut journey times between London and Birmingham by 20 minutes, (whoopee!) has, so far, cost the Taxpayer £1billion.

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Quotes from Government sources/those in the know:

The HS2’s first phase between London and Birmingham will cost almost £48bn, according to expert analysis commissioned by the Department for Transport (DfT).

Costs per mile to build it are expected to reach £403m, according to Government calculations.

The scheme could cost up to £104bn in total, including extensions to Manchester and Leeds. The first 6.6 miles from Euston to Old Oak Common would cost £8.25bn, or £1.25bn a mile.
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The Channel Tunnel struggles to make a profit, and receives state subsidies.

Don't forget this one

https://goo.gl/4rA52o

I was one of the (many) construction engineers.
The bridge was damaged during the Iraq invasion.

Something else springs to mind that some of you (Rollo especially) may have already checked out. I certainly haven't done so.

Taking building and continuing maintenance into account for both bridge and HS2, has anyone yet calculated how long it will take for these projects to make enough of a profit for the taxpayer to notice any benefit from either of them and both of them?

Or will they always remain vanity projects?

The future revenue revenue and value-of -saved time streams are calculated using fairly complex math models over 10/20/30 years and then converted back to NPV (net present value ). That has been standard practice with major transport projects for many years. Personally I think the methodology sucks.

The methodology depends a lot on the base assumptions. There are some huge black holes for HS2.

1. For the first stage the HS2 will actually run from London Old Oak Common to Birmingham (Aston) NOT Euston-New Street. Aston is a "development zone" i.e. slum with nothing much as yet on the radar. The time lost getting from Aston to New Street and OOC to central London is at least 15 min each end negating the overall 30 min saving on the current service!

2. Many of the users of the existing lines will have a degraded service. This has not been taken into account.

3. The rehousing and opportunity costs other than (lowish) compensation for homes and businesses have been ignored. The "benefits" from the Olympics have not come even close to the devastation caused to the east London economy.

4. The extensive tunneling costs are wildly unrealistic.

5. Ancient woodland and countryside valued at zero ( even though preserving some of it (cos of Tory MPs) is the reason for the tunneling

6. The cost benefit model is heavily reliant on the concept of business people travelling from London to Brum working on the train. There is scant evidence that much useful time will accrue working on the train. Moreover businesses are shifting to virtual meetings with large 4K defnition screens and improved sound quality. This development may in the end kill the whole HS2 project other than stage 1.

7. HS2 cannot be interworked with Eurostar or even the rest of railtrack due to gauge issues..

8. HS2 link to LHR probably won't happen.

Nothing like as big a white elephant as Hinckley Point though.

OTOH the only option to meet future demand for shifting freight across the Dover Straits is a bridge. The question is not if but when.

Agree on all points re HS2.

Personally I don't think the French have ever done anything bad enough to warrant having to be joined to the UK and as for increasing levels of freight requiring a bridge, that presupposes a continuation of 'business as usual' 20 odd years in the future.... I wouldn't bank on it .

So, all in all, HS2 needs better brains than those in use at the moment. Will there ever be any evidence of joined-up thinking?

How can anyone can pass something without taking everything into account (eg rehousing and compensation, travel to and from Aston and to and from Old Oak Common etc)? The figures seem to have been manipulated on the generous side.

Something afoot somewhere, methinks. Some journo needs to dig deeper ..... that'll bring out the gagging brigade no doubt.

As for BoJo's desire - I am not at all sure that it will get the go-ahead any time soon and certainly not in my lifetime or BoJo's, I suspect.

It's a funny old world we live in, isn't it! The vote goes for Brexit then up pops someone with an idea of introducing a new tie to Europe.

Joy louise,,
Yes and that someone was/is against staying in the EU.

Stupid bugger. he is.

Don't mince yer words Sue. :-D :-D :-D ;-) ;-) ;-)

You can vote for brexit every day of the week the reality is that the UK will go on doing two thirds of its external business with the rest of Europe. Liam Fox idea that trade with Oz, NZ, USA & Canada, China and India will make up the gap is absurd.

There may be a brexit induced short term hiccup but in the long run there is going to be a serious capacity problem given that Dover, Newhaven, Portsmouth and Southampton already operate at full stretch. Adding much capacity is impossible due to geology and geography

Bridges are not something that spring out of the ground mushroom like.

From when the shoe starts to pinch financial and political discussions would take at least five years , detailed design work another five years and construction as long again. Most of us won't be around 20-30 years from now. And that is the point really, Tthe future of brexit, free movement, the single currency and such matters as a channel bridge will be taken by the young who have a very different point of view to Sue in Yorkshire.

fwiw May ( and Bojo )'s current negotiating position is for the UK to operate some kind of shadow EU regime via "the Wthdrawal Bill" which will create "equivalence" allowing the UK to trade in goods, food and services with the EU as it does now BUT without being subject to the ECJ or contributing any money. Best of luck.

Still as Nyx points out it may delay the need for a cross channel bridge.

Travel up the east coast a bit, Rollo. Felixstowe, Hull, Teesport, Sunderland, Newcastle and others .. I'd be surprised if they were all operating at full-stretch capacity.

Still, if the powers-that-be can be convinced by the persuasions of those who have some undetected interest in a bridge across to Europe come what may, a bridge will be on the cards as you wrote.

I think it's quite mad to build one, it would bring more traffic to our roads and more of those big lorries driven by men who drive to fast need I go on, are going to have passport checks at both ends.

I thought we as a country was broke so the money that it would cost to build it could go to our N.H.S. for a start.2

Joy Louise.

True Yorkshire Folk don't mince their words.
So Why should I and I have got too old to be bothered what people think.

Linda, I agree with you absolutely. We need to sort out the mess this country is in just now, Health Service, Education etc before we start other projects. And you are correct, if we havent the money to sort out those important things just now, we certainly shouldnt be thinking of starting any new projects as where is the money going to come from?

There are people sleeping rough, care homes in need of major overhalls etc and affordable housing for those on low wages.
These things should be a priority just now not building some bridge!

Florence
in the hebrides :-P

Well, the French don't want the bridge anyway! :-D :-D :-D

But Macron he say yes.

Strange, I thought he said no, now I see I'm wrong, you're right, Sue, and he's all for it.
The questions is, who will pay?

Well of course because it was Johnson 's idea the UK taxpayers.

Of course he said yes he wants people out of Calais quicker!

The High Speed rail system, present HS1 (Dover-London) and HS2 are flawed in that (as Rollo says) they either miss the city centres or go in but to an out of town station or terminus entailing a transfer to complete the journey.

HS1 was supposed to go to an international station at Stratford so enabling continuation (by HS2) "oop north" without changing or into central London by tube (only a couple of stops and trains every couple of minutes) but some numpty scrapped that idea.

Woeful, the geographical minds of some in charge, don't you think?

North does not stop where it is planned for HS rail any more than south stops at London.

They are missing whole swathes of the country.

Supposing they are ignoring that Scotland is northernmost of the mainland (N Sturgeon will have 'em), Berwick-upon-Tweed and across the border counties to, say, Carlisle miss out on any benefit, as do the areas from, say Penzance, along the south coast to Kent and all of Wales.

HS2 is too costly a project for such a small benefit (a few minutes off a businessman's travel at best).

Far better to spend on parallelling existing lines and re-opening some previously-closed stations. More people will benefit and it would likely mean that not so many businesses and homes will be desecrated.

Not that I know about civil (or other) engineering projects.

Rollo, over to you.