Remember this list of Hs2rebellion (what ‘rebellion’? Ed) protection camps from last month? Well, you can scratch another one off the list. The barely functional and utterly pointless Wormwood Scrubs camp is no more!
Having been served with an eviction notice the squatters were ordered to demolish the mess of pallet towers and other structures they’d cluttered a corner of the scrubs with. As they didn’t have the numbers to put up any resistance they’ve meekly complied. Of course, they couldn’t have dome this without the aid of the local authority, who’re having to cart away the mess they’ve made at local taxpayers expense. Here’s a picture from their Facebook live feed today, which was filmed yesterday.
The remains of the Tower they’d spent ages building that was completely useless. I wonder what the Environmental Impact Assessment was for this pile of junk? Here’s how it looked when I visited the site at the end of August.
To say their camp was a complete waste of time is an understatement. They never stopped any of the work that HS2 contractors are undertaking to divert a sewer. You can see what’s actually happening on wormwood scrubs here. Here’s a map showing the extent of the area temporarily affected. The squatters camp was in the hatched area at the top right hand side of the map.
Now the new access road has been completed the temporary track matting is being removed, allowing the grassland to recover. The map also puts into perspective the ridiculous claims of the protesters that HS2 is ‘destroying’ Wormwood Scrubs! Only a tiny area is being hoarded off whilst the sewer’s diverted and once the work’s completed this will be returned to nature.
The removal of the Scrubs camp brings an end to the sorry tale of anti HS2 protests in London which have singularly failed to stop anything – just as they’ve failed everywhere else on the route. Now there’s just one (equally useless) camp left on the Phase 1 route, the laughably named ‘active resistance’ camp near Wendover. This has also been served with an eviction notice and the clearance of this final camp is expected anytime. I suspect that – despite the blustering name, there’ll be little resistance when the bailiffs move in! Sadly, local taxpayers will be left to pick up the bill once more for clearing up the mess left by these faux ‘environmentalists’. The one success Hs2Rebellion and the protesters have had is in wasting millions of pounds of other people’s money, both taxpayers and the mugs who’ve coughed up tens of thousands of pounds to support them through crowdfunding, none of which has never ever been accounted for…
It will be interesting to see how HS2Rebellion spin this latest failure in their fortnightly newsletter, which is due out today. I expect it’ll make ‘Comical Ali seem reasoned and objective!
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Today the Public Accounts Committee released their latest report on their investigations into the High Speed 2 rail project. It’s not a bad bit of work. It’s (rightly) critical of some aspects of the project but it doesn’t descend into hyperbole in the way the PAC used to do under a previous Chair. Instead, it’s objective and balanced – which is why it’s been almost completely ignored by opponents of HS2 as it’s shot their fox when it comes to their hysterical and exaggerated claims for the ‘true’ cost of HS2. I read it this morning but I’ll spare you having to do the same as I’ll bring you some of the highlights here. However, If you want to read the full report yourself. here’s a link.
Somewhere in there (and on the other side of the M25 already is a tunnel boring machine going great guns digging one of HS2’s Chiltern tunnels.
The summary immediately upsets opponents of HS2 as it points out that the costs of HS2 are nothing like their distorted claims. The report states that;
“With construction of Phase one underway and plans for Phase 2a approved by Parliament, the current estimated cost of completing High Speed 2 is between £72–98 billion (2019), an increase from the original budget of £55.7 billion (2015 prices) in 2015. While HS2 Ltd consider these estimates to be realistic, uncertainty remains, particularly when a substantial amount of the Phase One programme is still to be procured and HS2 Ltd is already reporting cost pressures of £0.8 billion from activities such as delayed enabling works and Euston station. HS2 Ltd is also unable to quantify the final cost of the impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic but estimates the cost to be between £300 million and £400 million at the end of 2020. If these costs are validated, they will need to be covered by the government-retained contingency of £4.3 billion”
So, yes, there are budget pressures, due to programme delays and Covid, but more of that later as the news isn’t all bad. For example, the project has a huge contingency budget, here’s what the report says on page 4;
“The Phase One budget is £44.6 billion including almost £10 billion of contingency (2019 prices)”
That’s a lot of contingency! Page 5 puts this into an even clearer perspctive.
“HS2 Ltd is now able to provide us with a clearer explanation of costs than we have previously seen in its reporting to Parliament. HS2 Ltd reports that it has spent £11 billion to date and used £0.4 billion of its contingency, out of a total budget of £44.6 billion (2019 prices). The contracting of Phase One civil construction, worth £15.5 billion, is complete, of which £2.5 billion has been spent. HS2 Ltd considers the budget for Phase One to be realistic and estimates it has completed approximately 20% of the work, having spent 5% of its contingency.”
Yep, only 5% of the “almost £10bn” has been spent, which suggests there’s still a lot of leeway in the budget despite the pandemic and other unexpected events. Contingency is a figure that most commentators (even those who should know better) routinely fail to explain. When you see that “HS2 will cost £100bn” or whatever headline figure’s being bandied around (normally the fictional £106.6bn lazily and wrongly used by the media) it’s important to understand this isn’t the *cost* of HS2, this is the budget for HS2 – and that budget includes a large contingency that’s there as a cushion in case of genuine, unexpected cost increases – such as the ones allocated to Covid – and only a tiny proportion of it (5%) has been used so far.
So, Quite rightly, the report recommends that;
“The Department and HS2 Ltd should set out as part of its future 6-monthly reporting to Parliament, a more comprehensive view on risk to the Phase One cost estimate and the use of contingency” this would include “a clear indication of whether cost pressures have increased, decreased or remained stable since the preceding 6-monthly report”
This makes sense as the budget is often difficult to understand as breakdowns don’t always follow a logical pattern. Another nugget is the news that the projects finances are not all about the contingency being eaten into. Page 11 contains this item;
“HS2 Ltd explained that it had an efficiencies programme and had found savings and opportunities totalling £200 million, mostly for civil construction such as bulk purchase of fencing and security.”
The report is less optimistic about the redevelopment of one of the key parts of the project – Euston station. The PAC’s very critical of the Department of Transport. They say;
“The Department has made little progress on the design and delivery at Euston since we last reported, and we remain concerned that time is running out. Euston station is a key element of the programme both as the London terminus for High Speed 2 and a link to existing railway network and London Underground. We raised concerns over the lack of clarity of the design and delivery of Euston station in our May 2020 report, but the Department has made no final decisions”
This is spot on and a major concern. The DfT (no doubt driven by the Treasury) has been doing everything it can to penny-pinch on Euston, even going as far as to potentially hamstring the future resilience and expansion of services by trying to cut the number of platform from 11 to 10 just to save a few bob in the short-term. As the PAC states;
“the Department has spent the past 15 months looking for cost saving options”
Sadly, this is a familiar pattern and a classic example of knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing. There’s a number of rail schemes where the DfT is constantly delaying them by asking for ‘reviews’ to relook at crucial (but expensive) options. The Trans-Pennine route upgrade (TRU) is yet another example. Rightly, the PAC point out that these delays can cost more money than they save.
The PAC mention another issue, not with the HS2 railway itself, but with the DfT and Government. They say (page 7);
“We are increasingly concerned that the Department and HS2 Ltd do not yet know how they will turn the benefits promised from High Speed 2 into a reality, including what additional investments will be needed or how these will be funded”.
It’s that vision thing again. It’s notoriously difficult to get politicians (and the Civil Service) to plan for the future rather than the electoral cycle. Of course, without HS2 the question is moot. You can read far more about the Euston station question on page 12 of the report.
There’s also a lot of detail on other aspects of the project including training, consultations and complaints, but I’m going to focus mostly on cost. On page 11 the report outlines the fact nearly of the major contracts for Phase 1 are let so costs are known;
“The construction of the main civil engineering components of the programme (such as tunnels and viaducts) is a major undertaking and was a major cause of delays and cost increases at the time of our last report.16 In a letter following our evidence session, HS2 Ltd informed us that it had now contracted all the civil construction work, worth £15.5 billion, of which it had paid approximately £2.5 billion. It told us that the estimated total cost of all four stations for Phase One would be just over £5 billion, and that it had agreed contracts for three of the four stations. As a result, it expected that the construction for Old Oak Common would be £1.67 billion, Birmingham Curzon Street would be £460 million and Euston would be £2.6 billion. It explained that it had not yet agreed a contract for construction at Birmingham Interchange but expected this to cost in total between £350 million and £500 million. HS2 Ltd told us that it estimated that railway systems will cost a total of £3.6 billion. Although some of the smaller systems contracts, such as the tunnel safety doors, had already been procured, HS2 Ltd told us that railway systems was the part of the programme where most procurement was outstanding. HS2 Ltd told us it planned to procure the larger systems contracts, such as track, electrification, signalling and controls, in the next two years. HS2 Ltd estimated the cost to purchase the trains (rolling stock) would be around £1.6 billion. The Department and HS2 Ltd told us that they hoped to award the contract to design and build the trains later in 2020″.
This is rather a disappointment for those who like to make up exaggerated numbers for how much they claim HS2 will cost!
Section 16 (page 13) goes into detail on the risks of integrating HS2 with the existing network, a problem that’s bedeviled Crossrail and one everyone’s keen to learn from and not repeat. I won’t go into detail other than to say it’s a problem people are focussed on avoiding.
The report contains an updated schedule of works, which says this;
“HS2 Ltd told us it had a 10-year programme of work for Phase One before services started between 2029 and 2033. It further explained that it planned to complete civil construction between 2020 and 2025; railway systems between 2025 and 2028; and, commissioning, integration, driver training and entering into service between 2028 and 2030”. This suggests that HS2 services will begin well before the extended programme date of 2033.
All in all it’s a good report that’s realistic about the challenges that come from the largest construction project in Europe, one that’s going to take many years to complete., with all the uncertainties and wild-cards the world can throw up in such a period. I only wish others would take such a pragmatic and reasoned approach. But that approach is probably why it’s been widely ignored. Journalists can’t roll out their favourite cliché and call it ‘damning’!
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Ah, the last day of summer – and it wasn’t a bad one weather-wise. Unfortunately, I was stuck in all day catching up on editing the mountain of pictures I’ve been taking these past couple of weeks in order to get them out to clients and/or on my website. My Zenfolio site now hosts two new galleries. One of pictures from the Infrarail/Railtex trade fair (which you can find here) and another from the ‘3 Peaks by Rail’ trip which you can find here. Oh, I’ve also added a variety of rail pictures taken out and about. They’re in various galleries, but if you follow this link to the ‘recent’ section of my website It’ll highlight which galleries they’ve been added to. If I manage to have a sufficiently early start tomorrow and clear the final items I need to have finished I might be able to venture out and make the most of the first day of autumn as the forecast remains good.
I suspect I’ll be tied to home most of the rest of the week as I’ve a couple of articles to pen about the 3 Peaks trip, and there’s a couple of blogs I’d like to get sorted out too. They’re not going to be about any HS2 protests as they’ve collapsed. There’s nothing happening at the moment until the final waste of space that’s the Wendover ‘protection’ camp is evicted, which will be anytime now. As predicted, the MPs debate on September 13th was another pointless exercise that achieved nothing at all. The room, which can hold about 50 MPs wasn’t even full. The ‘usual suspects’ who oppose HS2 trotted out the same tired and trite arguments and spin. All it was was an exercise in grandstanding. It was clear from the comments on some of the anti HS2 Facebook pages that people were expecting far more and were bitterly disappointed. Now it’s over, they’re left with nothing. There’s still going to be plenty to write about with HS2, but that’s going to be about the civil engineering and ecological mitigation work. I’ve several visits lined up for the autumn, so watch this space.
In the meantime, let’s move on to the picture of the day, which comes from my recent travels. Here’s Wasdale Head in Cumbria, the nearest settlement to Scafell Pike. The hotel you see in the bottom of the picture’s the Wasdale Head Inn which was an ideal spot to while away an hour whilst I waited for the 3 Peaks teams to come down from the mountain.
I love the lighting conditions here as you never quite know what you’re going to get! This day it was low cloud and fleeting glimpses of the sun, but that’s the Lake District for you…
I’ve a favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances appreciate all the help that we can get to aid us in bouncing back from lockdowns. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
It’s another silly o’ clock start for me. I was already up before my alarm which was set for 04:45. Now I’m putting the finishing touches to my packing before heading down to London.
06:02.
Despite my best efforts to creep around the house I woke Dawn who (bless her) offered to give me a lift to the station, so here I am, waiting for the first Westbound train of the day, the 06:04 to Wigan North Western. In the week since I last caught this service the days have got noticeably shorter. The day was just beginning to break, now it’s much darker.
I joined the front car which already had half a dozen occupants which isn’t bad for this unconsciable time of day! Almost immediately on departure a rather jolly Conductor came around to check tickets and we chatted for a few minutes about the merits and demerits of shift work and early starts. Having posted this on social media a friend tweeted and trumped my early start by saying he was already leaving his front door on the South coast at 04:45 to head into London!
06:40.
We’ve just left Rochdale where we picked up more than a dozen folk as well as depositing the Royal Mail workers I observed last week. My car now has 15 people aboard for the run to Manchester Victoria, not a bad number for the first train. Sunrise has finally arrived although the day’s looking gloomy.
07:10.
I’m on the move again but not via my normal route across the city centre. It’s said that a change is as good as a rest, so I hung around at Victoria long enough to grab a few pictures, observe passenger numbers (continuing to build) and waited for the train that was following mine across the Pennines in the shape of a Leeds – Chester service which I’m catching as far as Warrington Bank Quay. Reliability of this service can be patchy so I hedged my bets by waiting at Manchester in order to keep my options open. As it is, it’s on time. This route’s normally worked by Class 195s so it’s a comfortable alternative option with cross platform interchange at Warrington. Admittedly, with getting a lift earlier and not schlepping across Manchester on foot my daily step count is less than stellar so far, but I’m hoping to make that up later.
08:50.
The weather in Warrington was just as grey as the rest of my travels so far today – only wetter! Rain had set in which didn’t make a great backdrop for the few pictures I managed to take. The only highlight was observing a Northbound charter train from Chester to Carlisle via the Settle and Carlisle line run by West Coast railways. Whilst ‘standard’ seats were fairly quiet, Premier Dining seemed to be near full. Top and tailed by another pair of Class 47s, the train made a smoky departure North.
Shortly afterwards my service arrived in the shape of the 08:00 from Preston to London Euston. Warrington Bank Quay is its last stop. From here it runs fast to London, a distance of 182 miles, 11 chains. Capacity-busting, long- distance, non-stop services like these will transfer to High Speed 2 when it opens, freeing paths on existing lines for more regional, local and commuter services as well as freight – all the real winners from HS2.
Out of curiosity I walked through Standard just to see how many people were aboard. I counted 72 people, not a huge amount although this is a premium (full price ticket) service, so perhaps understandable. Now, if only we could persuade the Dept of Transport and the Treasury to stop trying to use the farebox as a cash-cow and start charging realistic ticket prices we could soon see this train full again.
09:10.
We’re now going ‘full tilt’ (if you’ll pardon the pun) down the Trent Valley with rain streaming along the windows as the weather hasn’t improved one jot. The sky is a uniform battleship grey with no sign of any breaks. Looks like I’m just going to have to get used to getting wet…
10:00.
We’ve just passed Harrow and Wealdstone in North London where the weather’s still grey and miserable, but the rain’s stopped. My event’s not far away between 11:00 -13:00. Will my luck hold?
17:00.
Well, that was a busy few hours. The job I couldn’t talk about was the official opening of HS2’s new 30-acre logistics hub near Willesden Junction on the site of the former Willesden Euroterminal on the West side of the West Coast Main Line. Some of the event took place in the pouring rain when one of GB Railfreight’s Class 66s (66796) imported from Europe was named ‘The Green Progressor’, by a young HS2 fan. 15 year old Jermaine Allen from Leeds and HS2 CEO Mark Thurston.
Jermaine (@Jermain37354962 on Twitter) has been a supporter of the project since he was 5. This bright and personable young man is also a knowledgeable ambassador for the project. What Jermaine didn’t know was that there was a second locomotive to be named today – and that second one (GBRF Class 08 shunter 08703) was named after him! It was hidden behind the Class 66 and rolled out after the first naming…L-R, Karen (Jermaine’s Mum), Jermaine. HS2 CEO Mark Thurston, Nigel (Jermaine’s Dad) and James Richardson, Managing Director, SCS JV.
Here’s the two locos in full.
After the naming we were treated to a tour of the control tower and given a briefing on of how the site is the hub for processing spoil from the 26 miles of London tunnelling undertaken by several tunnel boring machines and removing it to disposal sites at Barrington (Cambs) and Rugby (Warks) as well as being a future arrival site for tunnel segments that will be manufactured in Kent. The control centre’s a fascinating place because of the sheer amount of data it collects and collates on HS2 activity on the sites the SCS joint venture works on around London. As well as managing train movements in and out it also controls HGV and other road vehicle traffic. The data helps to streamline the activities to make them more efficient. This has a threefold impact. On costs, carbon and impact on the communities around the worksites. The data is displayed on two massive boards in the centre of one of the rooms. This one deals with rail traffic.
In another room were given the run-down on two other monitoring systems, but I won’t go into too much detail about them. One controls security around the site and monitors protester activity (what’s left of it) whilst the other looks at staff training and competencies and a whole range of statistics that help the JV and HS2 Ltd to assess that they’re hitting various targets and commitments. There’s also a system that monitors all HGV and LGV vehicles to ensure that they stick to agreed routes and don’t ‘stray’ plus a new system that’s being developed called ‘mudcam’. This camera system ensures that mud on the entrances/exits to HS2 compounds is monitored and dealt with as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Loading spoil from the Old Oak Common station construction site. Currently, this is being moved by road and stored in the background before being loaded onto the train for movement to Barrington. Soon, the spoil will be moved between the Old Oak and Willesden sites by an overhead conveyor. I’ll be making another visit to Willesden hub once this is in operation. I’ll write that up as a separate blog.
17:00
Right now I’m back on yet another Pendolino heading Northwards towards home. The brief dry spell that enabled me to get decent pictures of the loco’s soon vanished and I’m back in the gloom and murk as we speed North. In fact, the rain seems to be getting heavier again as I pass through Staffs. There’s certainly no incentive to hang around with the camera anywhere, that’s for sure…
20:33.
Home again! The weather defeated me and I’ve another busy day tomorrow so apart from getting a few shots of the dereliction and decay at Crewe station I only stayed long enough to change trains and head into Manchester before performing my usual traverse of the city centre from Piccadilly to Victoria to come home in order to have a quiet evening picture editing.
Tomorrow I’m off on a very different job compared to today. I’m heading to Norfolk with more of a Community Rail hat on to look at a project involving young artists and the redevelopment of a local station, so watch out for tomorrow’s rolling blog to see how I get on. Thankfully, the weather prospects are far better than what we had today so I’m hoping to stay dry…
I’ve a favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances appreciate all the help that we can get to aid us in bouncing back from lockdowns. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
Today I become a Surrey commuter, taking the train into London for the day to visit a camera repairer and spend the day visiting various railway locations around my old home. Sadly, it’s a very grey start to the day ‘dahn sarf’ although the forecast for the capital looks more promising. As the extended bank-holiday weekend is over I’ll be interested to see how many people have returned to work and how busy the capital is without its usual summer overload of foreign tourists. Or are they starting to creep back? Whatever, it should be an interesting and enjoyable day. Keep popping back to see how it develops. Right now I’m packing my kit ready for a lift to the station. See you later…
08:45.
Dawn’s dropped me off at the station in time to catch my first train of the day, the 08:33 to Guildford. You used to have to change at Aldershot to get to Guildford, but nowadays there’s a direct service. Today it’s operated by 450007 a 4-car Siemens Desiro. The trains lightly loaded with just half a dozen in my car after leaving Aldershot. Not having any previous experience of the route at this time of day I don’t know if that’s good or bad.
The heavy grey clouds have now added drizzle to the entertainment outside my train window. My Scottish friends have a word for a day like this. Dreich.
09:30.
On arrival at Guildford I had just enough time to grab a couple of pictures before the next Waterloo service arrived. The 09:05 was worked by a pair of well loaded 5-car Class 444s. I maged to find a seat for the trip to Woking where I changed once more in order to catch a service stopping at Clapham junction. A minute late a brace of diesel powered Class 159s rolled in, so I joined the leading seat which contains a respectable number of passengers.
09:55.
I see the London Overground is back to normal already.
11:30.
My trip on the busy Overground took me to Shepherds Bush, one of the few areas of London I really don’t know very well as I never had much call to go here. That said, the area around the LOROL and Underground stations has undergone a massive redevelopment, so it’s hardly surprising I don’t recognise much! I was here to catch the Central Line out to one of its Western extremities. As an old East-ender I know the other side well, but I was shocked to see the state of the trains today. They’re filthy inside and out.
They’re kept free of litter but they really do need a deep clean and some TLC. My trip took me to the far end of the line at West Ruislip. I’d come here to get shots of the HS2 construction site which is next to the line and easily visible from the station overbridge, as you can aee from this picture. It’s rail connected so that when it’s fully operational material can leave/arrive by train.
Thankfully, by the time I arrived the miserable drizzle had lifted, allowing me to get the shots I wanted. Now I’m heading back into London to grab shots from a few more locations on the line.
15:00.
I’ve had a busy time. My next stop was to East Acton, where I wandered up to Wormwood Scrubs to see the work HS2 contractors are doing to divert some utilities. As usual, some local ‘greens’ are screaming blue murder about the “destruction” of the Scrubs. There’s even a squalid squatters, sorry “protest” camp on the site near the work that’s taking place. Needless to say, the reality of what’s happening is far more mundane. A trench is being dug from OldOak Common Lane N-E along the edge of the Common. The fencing is far wider than the trench itself! Here’s the compound on the main road. Not exactly ‘laying waste’, is it? I’ll do a different blog about the whole site another time.
Meanwhile, here’s what the rest of the Scrubs looks like. The trench works are to the left, at the end of this temporary access road. Looks very ‘destroyed’, doesn’t it?
Meanwhile, just the other side of the railway to Wormwood Scrubs is the site of the new Old Oak Common HS2 station where construction works recently started. The station will be built in a vast underground box. Here’s what it looks like today as work ramps up. This is going to be stopped by the handful of squatters on the Scrubs? Seriously?
Retracing my steps to White City it suddenly dawned on me when I last spent time around here and why – and they’re not fond memories. I used to come here regularly in 2004-05 because my sister was receiving treatment for breast cancer at the Hammersmith hospital. Having beaten the disease back in the early 1990s it returned again 10 years later. Two mastectomies and specialist treatment only slowed it down. Sometimes she’d come down from Southport to stay with us whilst she had the treatment, other times she’d come down for the day. As Ruth didn’t know London I’d be her guide and get her to the hospital by bus and tube. I was with her on her last visit when the Surgeon told her there was nothing more they could do, her condition was terminal and she needed to arrange a Hospice. She was devestated after fighting for so long. She had two young children and fought like a lioness to see them grow up. It was an awful experience trying to comfort her. What on earth can you say to someone in that situation? So, now I remember why I never visited Acton again afterwards.
17:30
Shrugging off those memories I doubled back to Clapham Junction and on to Vauxhall to deposite my poorly lens in the tender care of Fixation, a company I’ve been using since I turned professional. They’re exellent and always helped me in the past. Hopefully the damage isn’t too severe and can be repaired quickly. Having that mission over I made my way to Clapham Junction once more to get pictures of these old girls, which are living on borrowed time due to delays in getting their replacements working, drivers trained and the units in service. Until that happens, the old 1980s, BR built Class 455s will remain on the front line, forming the backbone of suburban services.
Here’s what will displace the Class 455s. One day. This was a new Bombardier Aventra in Clapham Junction yard this morning.
19:00
I’m now off the rails (as it were!) and back in Tilford getting ready for a meal out with Dawn and her Niece, Jessica. We’ll be eating in Farnham so I’ll be going off-grid for a couple of hours. When we get back I’ll finish off this blog with a few more pictures and impressions from the day.
22:00.
I’m back! We enjoyed a relaxed and really good meal at Cotes in Farnham. Jess had only recently returned from her first festival experience at Reading and loved it (well, apart from the toilets, obviously – a rite of passage for any first-time festival goer), now we’re back in Tilford and I have chance to bring this blog to and end with a few thoughts and a couple of pictures.
Thoughts? How busy the railways have become again in such a short time. Travelling on the London Overground today and you’d think Covid had never happened, but then the Overground sees few tourists, it a Londoners travel network. The Underground was quieter than it was pre-Covid, partly because of the lack of tourists, but also because not everyone’s returned to work. Even so, I believe the doomsayers have been proved wrong – and within a very short time.
Another thought – how massively construction of the new HS2 railway is ramping up. The construction sites are a hive of activity. I visited several today and passed many more. The levels of activity are through the roof now mobilisation is in full swing. I’m looking forward to visiting many more sites along HS2 Phase 1 over the next few months in order to get a fuller picture. All in all, it’s been a fascinating day. But tomorrow I really will be heading North again – albeit not for long. September is going to be a very interesting month…
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What a difference a year makes! The summer of 2020 was full of stories of the rag-bag of Anarchists, professional-protesters, Extinction Rebellion supporters and a few local Nimbys who’d rallied to the “HS2Rebellion” banner. So-called ‘protection’ camps were set up in or by woodland and battles ensued with HS2 Ltd staff and security as the protesters boasted of how they were going to stop HS2 ‘in its tracks’. They made grandiose claims about the levels of support they had, none of which ever materialised as most were ‘keyboard warriors’ who’d send ‘love and rage’ (one of their favourite slogans) over the internet as they watched yet another interminable livestream from the protests.
Move on a year and the picture’s very different. Having suffered failure after failure, a series of camp evictions and arrests of most of the hard-core of the protesters, their campaign’s collapsed. Now the surviving ‘protection camps’ are little more than squats, where people are holed-up but doing nothing of any consequence to affect work on HS2, much less stop it. Right now, many of the handful of folk from the remaining camps are pratting around with Extinction Rebellion in Central London, which means they’re nowhere near HS2! Here’s a look at the supposed camp network, taken from HS2Rebellion’s website today. I’ve marked the true situation with the camps on each one.
As you can see, the ‘high profile’ camps like Euston, Harvil Rd and Crackley were cleared some time ago. The only one remaining in London’s the squat at Wormwood Scrubs. This scruffy encampment partly burned down a couple of days ago, prompting the local Council to finally lose patience with the few squatters remaining (who’ve never stopped any HS2 work at the site) and serve them with a 24-hour eviction notice yesterday! The irony? No-one was at the camp at the time as the handful of occupants weren’t trying to stop HS2, they were too busy pratting around with their chums from XR in Central London.
The mess in Euston Gardens back in October 2020 before the protesters started erecting bigger structures to cover their abortive tunneling efforts.
The Wendover camp on the A413 hangs on for now. It too has been served with eviction papers and will be cleared anytime soon. Whether the occupants try and ‘put up a fight’ or go meekly is open to question but the final result isn’t. They’ve been a small thorn in the side of the project (and annoyance to the local population, who got fed up of the thefts and begging) so no-one will be sad to see them go.
Jones’ Hill woods was the last ‘hurrah’ of their campaign. Activists like the serially failed Mark Keir bluffed, blustered and lied about how they were stopping HS2 through strength of numbers and court cases, but Keir’s always written metaphorical cheques he couldn’t cash. The court cases failed and the few protesters on the ground never stood any serious hope of stopping work. Now the woods are deserted as the work HS2 needed to do felling some trees is almost complete. Like most of the original Harvil Rd protesters Keir himself has disappeared, despite having a court case against him from earlier protests dismissed.
The ‘New Poors Piece’ camp is also deserted. It was always an odd one as it’s not on the route of HS2 but on the edge of the E-W Rail line, it’s just that HS2 Ltd are carrying out the work their on behalf of the EW project. So, in fact, the protesters were protesting about the very thing they claimed to support – new E-W railways! Hypocritical, much? The camp was only set up because the land was owned by a sympathetic farmer! Like many of their other locations, the protesters have left the woods in a mess. Abandoned towers choke the trees and the place looks more like a dump than a woods. The hypocrisy of these faux ‘environmentalists was always weapons-grade.
Looking more like a ‘scrapheap challenge’ than an eco-camp, these are the structures the protesters have abandoned in Poors Piece woods – which wasn’t even on the route of HS2!
Lazily, HS2Rebellion show ‘Camp Isla’ as active. Situated on private land, the owners had the camp evicted in May! They went without a struggle and most have now disappeared.
The last on the list is Bluebell Woods, which is located in HS2 phase 2a to Crewe. As usual, the protesters have spent all their time building structures out of pallets and other tat. Not that they’ve got much else to do other than get splinters in their backsides – the main HS2 Civils work isn’t due to start in this area until 2024!
Threats of other camps on Phase 2a remain just that, threats. Mainly because there’s so few of the original activists left. Most have drifted off to other causes or gone back into mainstream education or society. Of course, there’s still many court cases pending which will cramp the ‘style’ of the remaining ‘hard core’ of protesters (most of whom are linked to Extinction Rebellion) but they’re powerless to do anything. Plus, the money tap’s been turned off. People who used to donate to keep the camps alive have finally got fed up of seeing their money wasted. Now, you mostly see ‘activists’ begging for personal funding via Crowdfunders or other means (so that you can’t see how much is actually donated). Here’s good illustration of what I’m talking about. Here’s ‘peaceful’ protester Ross Monaghan throwing in the towel and begging for money at the same time.
Ironically, Ross, who was convicted of two charges of assault and four charges of criminal damage last month was hilariously boasting about putting the ‘final nail’ in HS2’s coffin earlier in the month (whilst begging for money). Now it seems the nail that was driven was into his protest career! Some ‘building’ campaign…
Here’s an example of how the money’s started to dry up. This is a funding page for the soon to be evicted (and laughably named) ‘active’ resistance camp at Wendover. It never got near its target and there’s been one donation of just £5 in a month. Social media is littered with pages like this.
Now the bird-nesting season’s coming to an end and the few remaining trees that HS2 need to remove on Phase 1 will be felled. With no-one around to stop the work it won’t take long. A few locals might still film the work to ‘bare-witness’ as the protesters like to call it, but all their bluster about all the ‘wildlife crimes’ HS2 has allegedly committed hasn’t resulted in a single prosecution – never mind a conviction. It’s funny, despite the amount of camera-phone footage filmed by the protesters they never ever managed to catch any evidence for any of their claims that would actually stand up in court. I suspect all these grandiose but baseless claims are one of the reasons support has dropped away.
I’m sure the posturing around the protests will drag on for a while yet, but already Hs2rebellion seem to be losing interest. With nothing to report, their ‘news’ letter has gone fortnightly. Even then, it’s pretty thin gruel. Like Hs2aa and Stophs2 before them they’re reduced to being a recycling service, punting any critical article about HS2 they can to try and keep flagging interest going.
Stop Hs2 is dead.
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Lat week HS2 Ltd released their corporate plan. Running to 76 pages it details the progress on the project so far and the key milestones which will be achieved over the next few years as construction of the new railway ramps up. It’s a great reality check to the manufactured media spin and speculation that we’ve been seeing over the past few days in advance of the September 13th non-event where a few MPs will debate HS2 in a room in Westminster Hall – with no vote at the end of the talking shop!
I’ve been reading though the report (which you can read here) to bring you the highlights. Right from the beginning the report acknowledges the impact of the global pandemic has had when it says “Inevitably, Covid-19 has had an impact on schedule, cost and productivity but the programme remains on schedule” – which is good news! Having personally visited two of the main construction sites (at Calvert and South Heath) I can attest to the lengths HS2 Ltd and its Joint-Venture construction partners have gone to in order to ensure a Covid-free workplace and the difficulties and expense this has led to. The challenges were especially strong in London, where most workers would be using public transport to/from work. Thankfully, all these challenges are now subsiding.
There is another challenge mentioned that may people would rather ignore. Brexit. Whilst the first two multi-million pound Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) were imported from Germany before January 1st 2021 (saving time and import duties) another 8 are yet to arrive. There’s no doubt our new relationship with the EU (being outside the single market and customs union) will add costs to HS2.
Moving on, the report mentions another significant milestone that’s already been achieved. Piling work has started on one 3.4km long Colne Valley viaduct. Over the next year, 292 piles will be sunk, some as driving as deep as 55 metres into the ground to support the viaduct. Initially, engineers sank 12 piles at two locations and used the geological and structural data to refine the design of the viaduct. This has allowed them to reduce the depth of piles by 10% to 15%, saving time, money and Co2 emissions. The viaduct piers and sections will be built at the HS2 site at South Heath and the factory for making them is currently under construction. Construction of the viaduct itself is expected to start in the second half of 2022 with the superstructure complete in late 2024.
The report contains a handy graphic outlining the time table for the next few years. Here’s 2021-22.
As you can see – there’s an awful lot going on! There are other works which have only recently started that haven’t been mentioned. For example, at Wendover construction of the cuttings and other major earthworks at what will be the North portal of the Chiltern tunnel began this month. Of course, work still continues at other sites such as Calvert, where East-West rail crosses HS2.
Here’s the 2023-24 time table.
The update does highlight one area of concern – Euston station. It says this on page 34;
“Following the DfT’s instructions in November 2020, we have been exploring design options to reduce cost and speed up delivery by building the station in a single construction stage. This includes considering options to reduce the number of platforms at Euston from 11 to 10 while maintaining 17 trains per hour (tph) operations for the full Phase Two service. If this design option is adopted, the station construction programme will become a single-stage build, reducing the impact of our works on local communities”.
Whilst speeding up the delivery of redevelopment of the Euston site, reducing the number of HS2 platforms is seen by many people (including myself) as a retrograde step that sacrifices the long-term operational future of HS2 for short-term expediency. I would really hope this temptation is resisted. The good news is that the decision doesn’t appear to have been made. Yet…
The report has more to say about Euston.
“MDJV has started work on-site preparing for early works and has completed installing the first 161 piles for the station’s west wall. Enabling works will continue to the end of 2023. Network Rail will undertake demolition works on the Euston conventional rail station through to the end of 2025. This will allow the construction of the east side of the HS2 station. Following the enabling works and design, the main station construction will start in spring 2023 with piling and excavations works”.
There’s more…
“Work on the 4.5 mile Euston tunnel, which will be built up to 50 metres underground, is scheduled to begin in early 2024 and be completed in mid-2025”
But it’s not just tunnels in the centre of London. The report mentions work at West Ruislip, saying;
“West Ruislip will be the first site to launch tunnel boring machines (TBMs) in London. The machines will be assembled at the end of 2021 and launched in 2022, travelling five miles east to create the western section of the Northolt tunnel. Piling works at the site have been progressing well, with the second piling rig installed in April this year. A base slab for the TBM launch will be created in the autumn and the launch portal is due to be complete by the end of 2021”.
Delivery of the new station at Old Oak Common is discussed (pages 38-41) and one particular piece caught my eye, which was the section on Co2 emissions.
“The roof covers an area larger than three football pitches and will be mounted with 3000m2 of solar panels to generate green energy for the station. Together with a number of sustainable design and construction innovations, the solar panels will allow us to cut the station’s emissions by more than 144,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent across its 120-year design life compared with the original designs”
This puts into perspective opponents dishonest claims that HS2 won’t be carbon neutral for 120 years. This claim (based on a 60 year rough calculation of HS2 Phase 1 from 2011) has been completely overtaken by detailed design work and a continual focus on reducing the Co2 produced in the building and future operation of HS2.
The report has some interesting things to say about the 50 mile rural section of the route being built by EKFB which includes Calvert. There’s this insight into the haul-road system.
“As this stretch of HS2 mainly runs through the countryside, the closest existing access to the route is often via minor roads through villages. Our construction team developed the concept of building a temporary access road to join up the whole 50-mile (80km) section. We are building a hard-surfaced road, with standard road signs and traffic lights, instead of a traditional earthworks haul road to reduce dust and noise and take traffic off local roads. The internal access road will be used to move people and materials and provide more efficient vehicle movements, cutting emissions, energy use, dust suppression measures and maintenance costs. Some sections of the internal access road will be removed when the site footprint is reduced but others could be retained for rail maintenance, farm access, or as a cycleway”.
On pages 55-57 details are given of another tunnel further North on the route – at Long Itchington.
“We started excavating the TBM launch portal at Long Itchington in April 2020. This involved 120 people and was completed in February 2021.
The first components of the 2,000-tonne variable density slurry TBM arrived in December 2020. The TBM is set to launch from the north portal in the autumn and is planned to break through about six months later. It will be extracted at the south portal ‘reception’ box, which is under construction, before being transported by road back to the north portal for the second bore. We plan to complete tunnelling in summer 2022. The north portal is also the site of the slurry treatment plant, which was built in six months. It will be used for processing the spoil excavated by the TBM so it can be reused for landscaping for HS2. At the south portal, we have started building the diaphragm walls for the green’ tunnel which will be about 160 metres long and forms the final section of the Area North scope before linking into the works by EKFB. The ‘green’ tunnel will blend into the landscape and be completed next year”
There’s also news of a tunnel extension and other green initiatives on page 58 that show how the detailed design work that continuing to be developed throughout the project means it’s always evolving.
“It is proposed that a second twin-bore tunnel, the Bromford tunnel, near Birmingham, be extended by 1.4 miles (2.2km) to 3.6 miles (5.8km) to run next to the M6 between Water Orton and Washwood Heath. Extending the tunnel has ecological benefits as it will reduce disturbance to Park Hall Nature Reserve. It will also take up to 250,000 lorries off roads in Birmingham city centre. Earthworks and enabling works started in February 2021 at the east portal, from where the TBM will launch. It is due to start its first ‘drive’ in August 2022 with the breakthrough expected a little over 12 months later. To overcome constraints at the tunnel’s western end, the TBM will then be returned to the east portal for the second tunnel.
We will start setting up piling platforms and the batching plant for the 522-metre Burton Green tunnel in Warwickshire, the shortest on the Phase One route, in October 2021. Piling works are set to begin in early 2022. This ‘green’ tunnel involves a cutting being created in the ground before a tunnel ‘box’ is built inside it. The space around the box is then filled to create an area of land on the surface. We have revised the design of the railway through the Canley Brook area, near Kenilworth, so it will travel in a slightly shallower and longer cutting. A viaduct can be built over the brook, reducing the diversion of the river from 700 metres to just 80 metres. This means we will excavate 600,000 cubic metres less earth and save 28,000 cubic metres of concrete by removing the retaining wall for the Canley Brook realignment. Less excavation and building work will cut the number of lorry movements by 2,500. Avoiding a major realignment of the waterway will help to preserve the home of otters and bats and we plan to create a wetland habitat either side of the realigned section of the brook”.
Page 59 contains this insight into the initial HS2 Phase 1 train timetable.
“Initially there will be at least three trains per hour between Curzon Street and Old Oak Common, which will act as the temporary London terminus for HS2 pending the completion of Euston. We are working with the DfT to assess whether a maximum of up to six trains per hour could be operated from Old Oak Common”.
The timetable for construction of Curzon St station is also discussed.
“We will build on the design vision as we work with Mace Dragados to agree a target price and we expect notification of Stage 2 in mid-2022, signalling the start of the detailed design and construction of the station. Construction activity will step up from summer 2022 to 2024 as we set up a site compound and start extensive works including excavation and piling. We will need to hit the key dates for the delivery of Curzon Street to make sure other contracts for the high-speed railway remain on schedule. Elements of the station building need to be completed by the end of 2025 to allow the Rail Systems team to access the station from January 2026. The station is currently scheduled for completion in 2028”.
Reducing the Co2 footprint is also mentioned.
“Revisions to the original designs for Curzon Street mean we will reduce carbon emissions by an estimated 55% during the ‘whole life’ design of the station and we will achieve net zero carbon emissions from regulated energy consumption. We will cut the station’s emissions by more than 87,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent – similar to removing the emissions of more than 10,000 houses”.
Moving on to Phase 2a between Birmingham and Crewe the report has this to say (page 64-67). I’ve gone into detail here as people don’t always understand that much about what’s being built on this phase of HS2.
“Our goal to deliver HS2’s national benefits as quickly as possible was boosted by Royal Assent for the Phase 2a hybrid Bill, achieved in February 2021. Activity is now ramping up along the 36-mile (58km) route connecting the West Midlands and Crewe, clearing the path for the railway in readiness for the start of main construction work in 2024”.
The report mentions a new approach on Phase 2a than 1. Early Environmental and Civils contracts are being let to speed up construction.
“Our new model also includes two early civils work packages. Early Civils Work package 1 (ECW1) includes two major junction improvements in Staffordshire at M6 Junction 15/A500 (Hanchurch Interchange) and the widening of Wood End Lane/A515 Tewnalls Lane near Lichfield for construction traffic. Early Civils Work package 2 (ECW2), due to start in Q4 2021 and valued at £50 million, will be awarded via the Government’s Construction Works and Associated Services framework. ECW2 includes a range of enabling works such as major highways work, utility diversions and a new bridge over the M6 near to Stone. This work will take place alongside environmental and other surveys. The package represents HS2’s first major civils work north of the West Midlands and will help us accelerate delivery as we build towards the handover to main civils construction in 2024″.
Page 62 contains a schedule for and details of the mains civils work to Crewe.
“We will start major earthworks in spring 2024, excavating cuttings and building embankments. The main civil engineering works include the IMB-R, 17 viaducts, 26 cuttings, 36 embankments and 65 bridges. We will build two twin-bored tunnels, totalling about 1.2 miles (2km), at Whitmore and Madeley. A short section (about 200 metres) of the southern part of the Whitmore tunnel will be a cut-and-cover or ‘green’ tunnel. The TBMs are set to be launched in 2025 and will tunnel from south to north. Both tunnels will have porous portals to control noise and make sure there is no adverse effect on the surrounding area as trains exit the tunnels. Both tunnels sit high in their respective hillsides and require significant works to secure access to start the building. Other significant structures include the River Trent and Kings Bromley viaducts which stretch for about two miles (3.5km) through flood plain and are separated by a large embankment. The Great Haywood viaduct spans the Colwich to Macclesfield line, the River Trent and the Trent and Mersey canal. It requires significant temporary works including a 230 metre temporary access bridge to allow articulated dumper trucks to pass over the rail and waterways to build the viaduct.
The River Lea viaduct sits in a valley between the two tunnels and has to span the WCML and Silverdale branch line. This will require two temporary crossings of the WCML for construction. The landmark Meaford viaduct will cross the M6 just north of the IMB-R. The three-span structure includes a 130 metre span over the motorway. The viaduct will be built off site before being transported into position and will be one of the most visible structures on the Phase 2a route. The complex spurs and main line which gives HS2 connection into Crewe station and onto the conventional rail network require major engineering, including a diversion of the WCML. The portal for the Crewe tunnel will need to be constructed at the same time due to space constraints with the tunnel being built as part of Phase 2b, subject to Parliamentary and government approval.
Following the completion of the track bed, we will install the railway systems, including slab track, signalling and the power supply. Testing and commissioning is expected to take place over two years from 2029 to 2031. Testing will start at the southern end of the Phase 2a route to allow us to test the train operating systems at the earliest opportunity. The route does not feature any new stations and the Phase 2a trains are part of the classic compatible fleet that will be shared with Phase One. The total estimated cost range for Phase 2a is £5 billion to £7 billion and the funding range will be finalised alongside the construction works delivery model.
So, on to Phase 2b. What’s the plan? Well…
“In line with the Government’s instructions, we are continuing to develop a hybrid Bill for the Phase 2b western leg, extending the railway from Crewe to Manchester with a connection to the West Coast Main Line (WCML) south of Wigan. The western leg will allow HS2 trains to serve destinations including Preston, Carlisle, Liverpool, Edinburgh and Glasgow”.
This means the Golborne spur South of Wigan is still very much part of the project. Despite local opposition claiming it’s ‘unnecessary’ the spur provides a relief route to the the heavily used two track section of the WCML at Weaver Junction where the Line to Liverpool diverges and also by-passes Warrington with its freight yards, junctions and congested station.
In his recent briefing to the Transport Select Committee Mark Thurston stated he expects the Phase 2b Hybrid Bill to be submitted to Parliament in February 2022. I won’t go into detail about what the 2021-24 report says about Phase 2b to Manchester and Wigan as plans could change once the Bill starts its journey through Parliament and the Petitioning process begins. However if you want to read about it, check out pages 66 and 67 of the report.
I hope this has been a useful insight into how things stand with HS2 now.
Cheers,
Paul
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Today Twitter is being bored to death by being bombarded with carbon copy tweets about the waste of time debate on HS2 in Parliament on the 13th September. Here’s a sample. In essence, the Wildlife Trusts are spamming Twitter.
Each pointless tweet contains a link to this page on the Wildlife Trusts website, which is what this cynical marketing and self-promotion exercise is really all about…
The WT’s claims in the text bear no relationship to reality of course, they’re just there to scaremonger and make people think that by responding, they’re doing ‘something’. There’s not a cat in hell’s chance of this achieving anything as the ‘debate’ is in a Committee room in Westminster Hall (not in the Commons chamber) and there’s no vote at the end of it. It’s a talking shop, nothing more. I’ve detailed how the Petitions Ctte works in this blog.
The real intent of this exercise is contained in the panel to the right. It’s merely an attempt to harvest more email addresses, website traffic and promote the Wildlife Trusts – and maybe get people to bung them a few quid in the process because once WT have got your email address you can be sure that’s what they’ll be doing! Now, all this is perfectly legal and above-board of course. Charities do this all the time. You can find the full details of the WT’s privacy policy here.
However there’s campaign’s and there’s ‘campaigns’ – and this one is pointless. It’s promoting an impossible objective – just like Packham’s petition. The only thing it’s going to achieve is to waste a lot of people’s time writing to their MPs (MPs who really do have better things to be doing right now). Mind you, there’s an interesting question over just how many MPs are getting to hear from their constituents on this matter. Oddly, an awful lot of the ‘people’ retweeting the WT are accounts like this, with follower numbers of less than 100 and no mention of who their MP is meant to be. In other words, they’re ‘Bots’ – nothing more than a retweeting machine, something that becomes obvious when you look at their timelines. The question is, who’s paying for them?
This is why I’m becoming increasingly cynical about certain charities and the soapboxes they climb on in an effort at self-promotion and acquiring donors. The truth takes a backseat…
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Whilst the HS2 Chiltern Tunnel Boring Machines continue their relentless progress North 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and the contractors building the new railway continue to recruit more staff and expand work-sites up and down the route, the rump of the protest campaign against HS2 retreats more and more into the world of fantasy. It’s a bit like the historical occupant of a certain Berlin bunker moving around imaginary army divisions on a map. Reality isn’t allowed to intrude into their echo-chamber.
The latest example of this is the fact that Chris Packhams Parliamentary petition (which got stuck on a paltry 155,000 signatures) has been scheduled to be debated by the Petitions Committee on September 13th. Extinction Rebellion/HS2Rebellion have a grandiosely titled ‘Parliamentary Liaison Team’ (aka ‘one man and his dog’). Led by one Sebastian Sandys, a London based XR member. Now, you’d think that a good start for such a person would be to actually understand how Parliament works. But oh, no – this is the anti HS2 campaign! Here’s Sandy’s latest post on one of the campaign Facebook pages.
“Support repeal”? Really? This is an option? There’s going to be a debate in the chamber of the Commons at the end of which there will be a vote on whether to repeal the HS2 Hybrid Bill(s)?
No, it’s complete cobblers. It’s a fantasy, nothing more and it’s only going to end in tears as those opposed to HS2 are being led down the garden path by these ridiculous claims.
How so? Well, let’s have a look at the Petitioning Ctte itself and it’s rules and regulations. Here the ‘how petitions work’ page on their website, which says the following:
“7. At 100,000 signatures your petition on the UK Government and Parliament site will be considered for a debate in Parliament.”
All well and good, Packhams petition passed that hurdle. The vote’s on, isn’t it? MPs will soon be flooding in to the Commons to debate and repeal. Well, no – there’s more…
“Petitions can disagree with the Government and can ask for it to change its policies. Petitions can be critical of the UK Government or Parliament.”
Yeah, yeah – get on with it – and?
As usual, the devil’s in the detail – and the details can be found on this page entitled ‘actions on petitions’ which says…
“”The Committee can schedule debates on petitions in Westminster Hall on Mondays from 4.30pm (for up to 3 hours). Petition debates are general debates about the issues raised by the petition. This means that the debates cannot directly change the law or result in a vote to implement the request of the petition. If your petition is debated, it means that MPs can discuss your petition, ask questions about the Government’s position on the issue, or press the Government to take action. A Government Minister takes part in the debate and answers the points raised.”
Wait? What? The debate’s in Westminster Hall? That’s not the floor of the house of Commons! and what’s this about the debate can’t ‘change the law’ (the HS2 Hybrid bills are law) or result in a vote? There’s no vote?
No. HS2 antis have been completely conned. Here’s how Packham’s petition was worded.
Put simply, it was an impossible ask because (as usual) Packham hadn’t done his homework and understood what these petitions can and can’t do. So, on the 13th September there will be a nice little talking shop in Westminster Hall that will be attended by a handful of MPs enjoying tea and biscuits, debating HS2 for a few hours, and at the end of – absolutely nothing will have changed!
Sandys *should* know this. So, either he doesn’t know so is accidentally leading people up the garden path, or he does know this and is deliberately leading people up the garden path! Either way, there’s going to be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth from HS2 protesters who’ve been misled into thinking there’s going to be a vote to repeal the HS2 Hybrid Bills on the 13th. All those people who’ve been persuaded to write to their MPs have wasted their time, but no change there then.
Did anyone seriously think any Government (of any political persuasion) would set up a system where laws passed by Parliament as part of Government policy could be repealed by a bunch of back-bench MPs in a Committee room on the back of the results of an e-petition? Talk about away with the fairies!
Order some popcorn, because I suspect there’s going to be some interesting comments posted on the various anti HS2 groups Facebook pages when folks realise the false hopes they’ve been fed by the likes of Sandys, XR and Hs2rebellion have been dashed – yet again…
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Every so often Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins bile duct overflows and he releases a torrent of vituperative and bombastic nonsense about the HS2 rail project. He’s been doing this on a regular basis for years now. The fact he’s always proved spectacularly wrong and fact-free never stops him as the man clearly believes his own myths and is unashamed by the fact his fictional tirades never age well.
Crewe based blogger Tim Fenton has punctured Jenkins hot air balloon several times in the past. Notably here in 2014 and here in 2015. Sadly, the fact nowadays he’s in the fairy story business rather than real Journalism hasn’t stopped the Guardian publishing him. I’m assuming their Editor no longer cares about trivial things like facts and the truth as clicks are more important. The rubbish Jenkins writes are good enough to generate those as his rants against HS2 are guaranteed to be shared by the projects opponents – even ones whom aren’t natural Guardian readers! It’s a win for the Grauniad and a loss for those who like decent, factual journalism, analysis – and the truth.
Let’s have a look at Jenkins latest fact-free farrago shall we? I’d suggest wearing a peg on your nose whilst doing it as the smell of bullshit is overpowering. It’s entitled “Depleted and unwanted, HS2 hurtles on as Johnson’s £100bn vanity project” – which is a good start as that’s three untruths in the headline and we haven’t even got to the article yet! The first paragraph is no better…
“Britain’s new high-speed railway will not – repeat: not – get to the north of England. It will go back and forth from London to the Midlands and its chief beneficiaries will be London commuters. All else is political spin”
Really? Jenkins seems unaware that contracts for building HS2 Phase 2a from Birmingham to Crewe have already been let. Contractors have already started on preparatory work as Phase 2a gained Royal Assent on the 11th February 2021 after flying through both Houses of Parliament with a huge majority – just as Phase 1 did. Now, what was that about “unwanted”? HS2 has always commanded huge-cross party political support. So much so that the handful of opponents in the Lords didn’t even bother calling for a vote on the Phase 2a bill as they knew they were completely outnumbered.
Oh, and “London Commuters”? Hs2 is a long-distance railway. Like all other long-distance railways that means the vast majority of passengers will be leisure travellers, NOT commuters. The HS2 business case is based on 70% of travellers doing so for leisure. How can that be predicted? Easy, because we know who uses the existing Long-Distance services.
Meanwhile, Jenkins continues to dig a hole…
“This became certain last week as the government’s internal major projects authority declared phase two of the HS2 project, to Manchester and Leeds, effectively dead. While the already-started London-to-Birmingham stretch is still marked at “amber/red” for “successful delivery in doubt”, anything north of Crewe has been designated “unachievable”.
This is complete cobblers of course and will come as real news to people on the leg from Crewe to Manchester (and HS2 Ltd themselves) as the Government announced the timetable for the Phase 2b leg in the Queens Speech at the state opening of Parliament. The bill will be deposited in Parliament next year.
As for this amber/red and ‘unachievable’ nonsense, this is Jenkins failing to understand what the ratings (given by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority) actually mean. For example, we have two ‘unachievable’ Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers floating around right now that the IPA rated red. Oh, and the new Intercity Express Programme (IEP) trains built by Hitachi that are ploughing up and down the East Coast and Great Western main lines? They were rated ‘unachievable’ as well.
What’s next? Oh yes,
“Since HS2 has always been politics-driven – no rail strategy ever gave it priority”
This is more complete bollocks. The origins of HS2 are in several studies looking at the needs for future rail capacity that were carried out by the likes of Network Rail. In fact, it was this study. “Meeting the capacity challenge: The case for new lines” which was published by NR in 2009 that was the basis for HS2. It was the rail industry who established the need for HS2, not politicians.
Next?
“The only way of conveying the scale of Johnson’s vanity in this vanity project is to convey its opportunity cost, a projected £106bn (and rising) over 20 years.”
More cobblers. The cost of HS2 is not a ‘projected’ £106bn. Yet again Jenkins resorts to fiction as he’s just too idle and sure of himself to fact check but he’s not alone in filching figures from others without checking so I’ll cut him some slack. This number has been bandied around an awful lot in the media. That’s because the media is so incestuous as well as lazy. Nicking other people’s copy is endemic. It’s like Chinese whispers and ‘send three and fourpence, the General’s going to a dance’, an error’s circulated, magnified and becomes a ‘fact’. It’s claimed the £106bn is an ‘official’ figure because it was in the Oakervee Review of HS2. There’s just one teeny problem – the actual figure (£106.6bn) was mentioned in the review so that Oakervee could specifically dismiss it! Here’s a link to the Oakervee review. Here’s what Oakervee actually said.
Here’s what Oakervee ‘really’ said about the costs (there’s a range, not a single figure).
So, £80.7 – 87-7bn. Not figures you’ll see the press using as it’s not a single number that’s scary enough!
Jenkins then goes into the standard economic illiteracy about what spending funds for HS2 could do for the NHS, neatly showing he doesn’t understand the fact there’s no pot of money sat in the Treasury labelled ‘For HS2’ that’s waiting to rebadged, that he doesn’t know the difference between operational expenditure and capital expenditure, and thirdly, that Hs2’s funded by borrowing, not taxation. I’ve covered all those points in this blog in the past.
Continuing with his nonsensical claims, Jenkins than says;
“This one train line will consume the equivalent of Britain’s entire projected railway investment budget during its two decades of construction. Even the initial phase to Birmingham, at roughly £70bn, is twice the £40bn cost of the “northern powerhouse” rail system”
Firstly, Phase 1 is budgeted at £40-43bn (see above) £70bn is a number Jenkins has invented. Secondly, No-one knows that the UKs projected rail budget is for the next 20 years as it’s not set that far in advance. Network Rail’s budget is set in 5 year periods, known as ‘Control Periods’. The current one (CP6) runs from 2019-2024. That was set at 47bn. Of course the line between maintenance and ‘investment’ is blurred. For example, is replacing life-expired signalling with an upgraded system maintenance or investment? Here’s a link to the Department of transport’s budget 2019-2020. It makes it clear that the amount spent on Hs2 is dwarfed by what’s spent on the existing national rail network.
Oh, and that doesn’t include what others (like the Welsh and Scottish Governments, or train builders) invest in the railways either. Jenkin’s claim is simply more spherical objects..
Jenkin’s diatribe of nonsense continues with this tosh.
“Meanwhile arguments continue over the trains themselves. They are not planned to tilt, which means that any time saved on a new track to Birmingham will be lost on winding track further north. A re-signalled King’s Cross line could even get to Scotland faster. HS2 is more a taxpayer-funded theme park ride”.
*Sigh*. Where to start on this rubbish? 1. HS2’s already being built North of Birmingham to Crewe. 2. The trains don’t need to tilt to keep time as the new Hitachi Class 802s operated by Transpennine Express have already proved, (technology has moved on) plus Network Rail are proposing some track upgrades on the route to Scotland anyway. 3. Re-signalling The East Coast won’t speed it up in any meaningful way as you’d need to close all the level and foot crossings which would cost a fortune and you still wouldn’t get HS2 speed – plus – you’d devastate capacity on the route by running faster trains! This crucial factor is missed by armchair experts like Jenkins. Speed up trains on the existing main lines which are already overflowing with services and you reduce capacity as slower trains have to be ditched from the timetable to leave room for the faster ones. It’s the raison d’être for HS2, by removing those non-stop high-speed services you free up large chunks of capacity on the existing network. Jenkins ignores that crucial point because it doesn’t fit his narrative. As for the final tosh about ‘taxpayer funded’ – we’ve been over this until we’re blue in the face. HS2 is funded by borrowing against future GDP increases, not taxation!
Jenkin’s continues with his ‘vanity project’ tosh with this statement;
“What is intriguing is how HS2 has mutated from from a transport project to political machismo – “infrastructure” that is good in itself.”
Trying to label HS2 as a ‘Johnson’ project simply won’t wash – because by the time HS2 opens Johnson (hopefully) will be long gone. HS2’s been in development for over 11 years. In that time we’ve had Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Teresa May and Boris Johnson premierships. The project was kicked off by a Labour Government, taken forward by a Coalition Government and now construction’s started under a Tory Government. It’s hard to think of many schemes as apolitical as HS2. By the time the whole project’s completed that will be nearer 25 years. Who know who’ll be the Prime Minister cutting the tape when the first phase opens in 2029!
Jenkin’s final canard is this, the old “Hs2 is stealing your investment money”
“(Andy Burnham) will now find Birmingham blessed with cash that might have renovated his dire northern powerhouse rail network three times over – money he may now never see”
Playing regional mayors off against each other I see. It won’t wash. That money comes from Whitehall anyway. They make the investment choices as funding powers and budgets haven’t been devolved by the Government – much to the North’s annoyance – and that’s not exclusively to do with Burnham either. The Government set up Transport for the North but didn’t give it control of its budget. This is a Government decision but it’s nothing to do with HS2 which has a separate funding stream. Still, facts eh? You’ll never get ’em from Jenkins!
No doubt Jenkins latest pile of cobblers will keep the Grauniad happy as it’s done it’s job creating clicks and comments. It won’t stop HS2 in the slightest of course, the only effect it will have in the long term is to continue the downwards trajectory of the reputation of English journalism. Next time you see a Jenkins article on HS2, save yourself some time and file it straight in the bin…
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