Over the past few weeks I’ve been privileged to visit two of the major High Speed 2 railway construction sites. Firstly the one at Calvert, Buckinghamshire on the 23rd June where HS2 will cross the rebuilt East-West Railway, then the site at West Hyde in Hertfordshire on the 13th July where the Chiltern tunnels are being driven North whilst the Colne valley viaduct will be built Southwards. My article on the Calvert site will be appearing in a future edition of RAIL magazine but I’ll be blogging at length about my visit to West Hyde next week. Both visits demonstrate how construction of the new railway is ramping up massively now that contractors have finally been able to mobilise and begin the main civil engineering. This process will really more obvious next year when the Colne valley viaduct starts to span the lakes as you can’t see the tunneling and many cuttings that are being constructed are below peoples line of sight, so out of view – especially as they’re tucked away in the countryside. It’s the bridges and stations that are the most visible signs of progress. I’ve now got most of the pictures I’ve taken during my visits online. You can find them in this gallery on my Zenfolio website.
Over the the next few months I’ll be visiting other HS2 construction site to bring you views and in-depth news of what’s actually going on with the largest construction project in Europe. As well as the engineering I’ll be talking a look at some of the ecological and mitigation work that’s being carried out to make this the greenest project of its kind.
What you’ll be hearing less and less about is the protests against HS2, becuase they’ve collapsed.
Having reached their height last summer they’ve been gradually fizzling out ever since. The Euston Gardens tunnel eviction early this year was their most public failure, but there’s been many since. Now, even their umbrella group – HS2Rebellion – are tacitly admitting that the protests asre on the wane. Yesterday they announced that after 38 issues their weekly (no)newsletter is going from weekly to fortnightly!
Mind you, its appearence has beeb patchy for some months due to a lack of anything to report. Deserted ‘protection’ camps don’t produce anything so they’ve filled space by talking about other political campaigns. Here’s a look at their probel. These are the ‘protection’ camps they list on their website with my annotations to reflect the true picture that HS2Rebellion aren’t admitting.
Hardly what you’d call an active campaign, is it? The handful of people left at the camps are in no position to mount any coherent actions against HS2, most of their time seems to be spent getting splinters in their backsides whilst appealling for funds to keep them in food. Even their social media activity’s dropping away as the mostly young people involved lose interest and find other things to get outraged about. When you consider the summer is meant to be the height of the activist season it’s clear they’re a busted flush now.
Come the autumn when it’s clear they’ve failed to ‘protect’ anything, much less actually stop HS2 I’m expecting the last few camps on Phase 1 to pack up and the people involved either drift off to other campaigns or try to set up new camps on Phase 2a. But they have several problems. Their support up North is nowhere near as strong or well-established as it was in the Chilterns, the weather’s harsher in the winter and they’re going to be waiting until Spring 2024 before the main civils work starts on phase 2a. That’s three winters away. Care to take bets on how many people are willing or able to sit around for that length of time – even if they’re not evicted first? So, as you can see, this is going to be the final year of any organised (and I use that term very loosly) campaign against HS2, which leaves me free to write about other things. No doubt I’ll still keep a watchful eye on the rump of their campaign as it continues to sink but I’m looking forward to writing future blogs on the positive events going on with the HS2 project.
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After 8 days of walking from Lichfield to Wigan @hs2rebellion’s ‘Truth Trail’ ended like a damp squib in Wigan this afternoon – as it was always going to. Despite getting some support from local Extinction Rebellion groups it was painfully obvious this was a tiny band of people talking to themselves. Most days the march only had a couple of dozen people on it – and the vast majority of them were the usual suspects.
A smattering of Nimbys from the HS2 Phase 1 route in Buckinghamshire, plus many faces stripped from the deserted ‘protection’ camps in the same area. They were sometimes joined by a few local Nimbys, but therein lies their problem. The old StopHs2 ‘action’ group network has collapsed, not that it was ever very strong on the Lichfield – Manchester leg of HS2 anyway. There were never more than half a dozen (all rural) groups and none in any of the towns and cities on the route like Stafford, Crewe, Wigan or Manchester. Most people gave up years ago and have moved on, metaphorically or literally – especially as the phase 2a Hybrid Bill became law and the early stages of constructing the line as far as Crewe have begun.
There’s also another problem. There’s no political appetite to stop HS2 in the North-West. Exactly the opposite. A few local MPs sometimes make noises about HS2 but no-one pretends they can stop it. Instead, the project enjoys huge support at all levels, from Parliament, the city regions elected Mayors and regional authorities. Why they chose to end up in Wigan rather than Manchester is another mystery. I doubt any of them have ever been near the place before and certainly won’t know anything about the town or its people. Still, I’m sure the posh Southern accents of the Buckinghamshire Nimbys will have carried great weight in ‘Wiggin’!
So this ‘travesty of the truth trail’ was always doomed to failure. Even the media ignored it apart from a couple of local news websites. After all, where’s the news? “A few southern Nimbys, anarchists and hippies march to the North to tell it what’s good for it” is hardly a good story, is it? The well-known Crewe based political blogger Tim Fenton (aka @zelo_street) had this to say on Twitter.
Here’s illustrations of today’s fiasco taken from the HS2rebellion Facebook page.
This is serially failed Green party Candidate for Uxbridge and former resident of Jones’ Hill Woods (where he failed to stop HS2 yet again) Mark Kier addressing the tiny crowd of Extinction Rebellion members and marchers in Wigan. Yep, the only speaker they had actually lives in West London! I’m sure the good folk of Wigan must have been impressed. Well, maybe if any of them had turned out that is…
Here’s a look at the ‘crowd’ he was addressing.
If you want to hear just how deluded and mixed-up the messaging from these people are (and you’re on Facebook) you can hear the speeches on this link. The levels of naivety and denial of political reality is weapons-grade. This is worthy of the Flat-Earth Society!
Not exactly what you’d call a cross-section of the local community either, is it? This is really just a bunch of XR supporters talking to themselves. Despite the big billing they gave this event, the almost non-existant support it gained from ordinary people says everything – as does the lack of money it’s raised. They set up a crowdfunder with the target of £3000. It’s not even managed to get half of that. Clearly, real Northerners are more careful with their brass!
If this was meant to ‘reinvigorate’ the anti HS2 campaign in the North, then someone really didn’t do their homework! Meanwhile, in the Chilterns the second of 10 HS2 tunnel boring machines started drilling this week…
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Just when I think those ‘environmentalists’ protesting against the High Speed 2 railway couldn’t get any more hypocritical or be more out of touch with reality, they say ‘hold my beer’ and come out with another absolute stunner. In the latest case it’s this weapons-grade hypocrisy from HS2Rebellion, whose ‘truth trail’ march to Wigan isn’t exactly setting the media channels alight. Hardly surprising as a couple of dozen people traipsing from Lichfield to Wigan is hardly ‘news’.
This is more Monty Python and the Holy Grail than Lord of the Rings!
So, HS2Rebellion have been desperately trying to find other stuff to fill their social media with and hit upon this, a screenshot of the new but failing right-wing ‘news’ channel GBNews (or ‘gammon news’ as it’s become known as), featuring – the Taxpayers Alliance!
Yes, HS2Rebellion are now endorsing and advertising the TPA and their low tax agenda! The secretive TPA, that refuses to admit who funds it, is one of a cabal of organisations operating out of 55 Tufton St in London. It includes the equally right wing and secretive Institute of Economic Affairs and also Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), founded by former chancellor Nigel Lawson – one of a network of organisations spreading misinformation about and denying the existance of Global Warming.
Seriously, you couldn’t get stranger bedfellows than HS2Rebellion and the TPA. I can only assume the middle-class kids behind HS2rebellion haven’t got a clue who the TPA are!
They might want to do a little research and reading, like this;
That groups like HS2Rebellion are pushing the same right-wing agenda that says we need to cut public spending is utterly bizarre. Do they honestly think tackling Climate Change can be done on the cheap? That’s a rhetorical question as I don’t see much thinking being done by them on anything serious. The sooner these faux ‘green’ groups collapse the better as they do nothing but trash (in more ways than one) the reputation of the real environmental movement. Thankfully, they’ve been utterly useless when it comes to stopping HS2 and will remain that way. I just wish some of the gullible but well-meaning people who keep funding them would realise just what they really are throwing their money away on – a dubious bunch of anarchists and hard-left political dogmatists with an agenda that has nothing to do with the environment.
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 need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
There’s so few people still actively trying to stop HS2 nowadays that there’s been thin gruel for this feature in recent months but today a particular piece of idiocy and hypocrisy caught my eye that I thought was worth sharing. This weeks award goes not to an individual but the whole of useless campaign group @hs2rebellion, an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion, the supposed ‘environmentalists’ who use green issues to drag people into their brand of far-left, ‘bring down capitalism’ politics.
Here’s what I spotted. ‘Environmentalists’ telling motorists to stop the building of HS2, a green railway designed to get modal shift from road to rail to cut transport Co2 emissions to tackle climate change!
Hs2Rebellion’s latest wheeze now that they’ve failed to stop Hs2 being built in the South is to roll out the same old failed tactics in the North. In this instance by trying to get people to join them on the laughably-named ‘Truth Trail’, otherwise known as a 100 mile group walk.
The obvious question that forms here is that – whilst they’re wearing out their (presumably) non-leather shoes walking 100 miles, who’s meant to be actively stopping HS2, because their ‘protection’ camps on phase 1 are almost deserted!
I have to laugh at the final sentence in this blather. “Based as closely as possible aroung public transport”. That would be the same public transport you’ve stuck banners up on bridges over roads encouraging motorists to stop us building then?
I can’t wait to see how many people actually turn up to waste their time on this walk. I’ve lost count of the number of times individuals or groups used the same publicity stunt on phase 1 of HS2. There were literally dozens over the years. From Lizzie, the original founder of Stop Hs2 through Joe Rukin, various artists and photographers to @hs2rebellion. They achived the sum total of bugger all! What will this one achieve? Nothing. Hs2 Phase 2a to Crewe already has Royal Assent and work has stated on construction whilst Phase 2b to Manchester and Leeds have massive support from MPs of all parties as well as regional politicans. There’s no political appetite to stop hS2 being built, exactly the opposite.
What these publicity stunts seem to be designed for nowadays is to get mugs to cough up more money through Crowdfunders. Money that no-one knows what happens to because no accounts are ever published. I’m always amazed how willing some people are to donate money to these causes when they’ve absolutely no idea where it goes.
The funds would be better spent on clearing up the mess left in woods across the phase 1 route, where abandoned ‘protection’ camps are left to rot, rather than building more in the North. Like this example at Poors Piece. I called in there earlier this week. It was empty apart from some chickens. The last few ‘protesters’ had buggered off to Stonehenge.
“At one” with their environment? I think not! This pile of junk choking a tree is actually a tower and tree house on the edge of the woods facing the East-West railway line. I’d love to know what their Environmental Impact Assessment was for these structures. How many wasted hours were spent building these things? How were these meant to ‘stophs2’ when the nearest they are to Hs2 is 400 metres from the most Eastern edge of what will be the Calvert Infrastructure Maintenenace Depot (IMD) and over 1.5km from the main HS2 works site and trace? Did they stop part of the camp that was blocking work on the E-W railway from being evicted? Did they heck as like! Here’s some perspective. Looking along the edge of the site from the footpath.
You can see the abandoned single line of East-West rail off to the left. Trees nearest the old railway have been felled to make way for the new railway and create space for drainage and future electrification. These are the trees the protesters have supposedly been ‘protecting’. The edge of Poors Piece wood is just out of shot to the right. So, as you can see, the protesters aren’t protesting about HS2, but East-West rail rebuilding and restoring an old railway – exactly the sort of thing they tout as an ‘alternative’ to HS2! Talk about hypocrisy!
Laughably, the camp at Poors Piece is branded a ‘conservation’ camp (here’s their Facebook page, which shows how little has been going on). The only ‘conservation’ going on here seems to be the hoarding of piles of scap metal, plastic sheeting, UPVC doors and other old rubbish that would be better off being taken to a local authority recycling centre.
Some of that timber looks like it’s been taken from vandalised fencing along the public footpath adjacent to the site, as you can see in this picture. These posts should have a triple row of crosspieces between them that have mysteriously disappeared…
Vandalism and desecration of the environment these people are supposedly ‘protecting’ has been a common thread throughout the camps that’s caused friction with local people who often end up paying for the mess the protesters create to be cleared up by their local Councils.
Earlier this week, HS2 Chief Executive Mark Thurston said this to the Public Accounts Committee in relation to these protests ““We’ve spent somewhere in the region now of £75 million worth of public money in dealing with the implications of this action.” £75 million. Think of what that could have been spent on in the way of environmental mitigation and tree planting instead of being squandered on the alter of far-left politics, another irony of which is the left here are doing the right-wing and road lobby’s job for it by opposing building green public transport.
Whilst donating money to thse these protests may make some people feel all warm because think they’re ‘saving’ the environment, they really need to take a cold hard look at what’s really happening on the ground. The protests are futile. All they’re achieving is to damage (not save) woodland and waste enormous amounts of time and money. Money that could be far better spent on genuine environmental improvements. So, next time you hear someone tell you they’re tempted to give money to these people, tell them to give it to a genuine environmental charity, not to a bunch of self-indulgent anarchists driving up and down the country leaving abandoned and unsafe messes like this in their wake.
UPDATE:
When I began writing this blog earlier today the ‘truth trail’ hadn’t even started. Now, at the end of day 1 it already seems to be going a bit ‘Pete Tong’ for @hs2rebellion. They kicked off in Lichfield with some motivational speeched from err, Larch Maxey and Carolyne Culver. Who, you may ask? Larch Maxey is a long term protester in the pay of Extinction Rebellion who has a track record of failure going back to the mid-1990s when he didn’t stop a motorway extension in Lancashire. More recently, he was flummoxed by a pair of automatic doors he failed to glue himself to. Even more recently he’s been a jailbird in Pentonville prison in London after vandalising the HQ of HS2Ltd at Euston. Only it wasn’t. Their HQ is in Birmingham and the offices Maxey vandalised were those of Network Rail (HS2 have a small satellite office in a nearby building).
Culver was Green Party Candidate in the recent Amersham and Chesham by-election who’s Nimby campaign was entirely based on opposing HS2. So much so that she never even mentioned climate change. She lost the Green party’s deposit as she halved the vote they received in the 2019 general election. With ‘inspirations’ like this, who needs failures. Oh, there’s more. Look at this screengrab!
The gardner Culver is referring to is Mark Keir, another awful failure for the Green Party who stood as a candidate in Uxbridge in the 2019 election. This is through the looking glass stuff. Far from ‘winning’ in court he suffered a humiliating defeat – as I detailed in this blog. Honestly, talk about detached from reality!
Still, I’m sure the HS2Rebellion Facebook page is full of banner-waving people joyously marching North from Lichfield, isn’t it? Err, no. All it contains is a couple of video’s from a trio of people who say they’ve ‘detoured’ from the main march (which we never see) to drive (wait a minute, drive?) to a couple of woods on the route they claim will be ‘destroyed’ by HS2.
This is ‘Comical Ali’ levels of denial and misinformation, and this is only day 1 of their laughably named ‘truth trail’. In some ways it’s rather appropriate they’re ending up in Wigan as their levels of dishonesty and misinformation rival George Orwells ‘Ministry of Truth’ from his novel 1984. I wonder if they’re going to hold their final rally on Wigan Pier? As this painful farce is meant to last for eight days I’m sure there will be plenty of other embarassing moments en-route. That is, if the whole thing doesn’t collapse in ignomy and indifference before they even get to Wigan!
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The ‘environmentalists’ of Hs2Rebellion never cease to amaze me by their levels of cognitive dissonance, and this one is an absolute doozy! Take a look at this latest attempt to seperate fools from their money by getting them to donate via a crowdfunder.
More detail is given on the Crowdfunder page. To paraphrase “please donate money so that I can buy another old car to drive down to Cornwall from the South-East to protest about climate change”
Are you having a laugh? Drive an old banger all the way to Cornwall? Have these ‘environmentalists’ never heard of public transport? You know, like trains, the very thing they’re protesting about and trying to stop? The irony that these ‘environmentalists’ are driving between protest camps in a fleet of old gas-guzzling, carbon-spewing jalopies is completely lost on them. I wonder how many of them are diesels too? Here’s another example. I wonder what the emmissions and MPG are for this old Range Rover which is another of the clapped-out vehicles they use (they were crowdunding the repair bill for it the other week). Now, what do you reckon the carbon footprint is of a round trip of circa 300 miles to pick up an old caravan is? Plus, after achieving nothing outside the G7 meeting in Cornwall, these ‘environmentalists’ are proposing to drive all the way to Glasgow to repeat their failure outside the COP26 conference. How many miles is London – Cornwall – Glasgow – London in a gas guzzler I wonder?
Whatever these people are – ‘environmentalists’ they ain’t. They leave a trail of destruction and pollution wherever they go, be it destroying the ecology of pristine chalk streams, sullying woodlands with sewage and other detritus or driving hundreds of miles in old cars – or pulling stunts like this by burning rather than recycling timber from a camp they were being evicted from. Even one of their followers lost it with them over this!
Hopefully, now that their campaign has collapsed, the crowdfunding tap will be turned off. If those mugs who’re donating *really* want to save the environment, give the money to some charities who’re genuinely helping restore and preserve nature!
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 need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
Just as you know that night follows day you know that when those who oppose HS2 resort to the courts, it’s only going to end one way – and so it was again yesterday.
Firstly, a bit of background. The group of protesters who’ve remained camped in part of Jones’ Hill woods after being evicted from the part of the woods required to build HS2 managed to raise crowdfunded money to challenge Natural England bat licenses which were granted on March 31st, allowing HS2 contractors to fell trees and clear vegetation under certain conditions (see Natural England’s blog here). Led by serial failure and former Green Party candidate Mark Kier (blogs passim) they applied for a High Court injunction on April 16th. Mrs Justice Lang DBE granted an injunction on only one of the several licenses issued by NE, those defined in License WML-OR58. The rest were allowed to stand.
The injunction said that:
“The application for permission is adjourned to be listed in court as a “rolled up hearing”, on notice to the Defendant and Interested Parties, on a date in the week commencing 24 May 2021 or as soon as possible from 8 June 2021 onwards, having regard to the availability of counsel already instructed at the date of this order. If permission to apply for judicial review is granted at that hearing, the Court will proceed immediately to determine the substantive claim.”
Mrs Justice Lang’s judgement went on to describe her reasoning, which I won’t include here for the sake of brevity (and the fact her judgement was overturned).
Natural England appealed (note, not Hs2 Ltd or the Government as it was NE who granted the licenses and were named as the defendants, HS2 was merely listed as an ‘Interested Party’). The appeal was heard by Mr Justice Holgate on Monday 28th. Holgate discharged the injunction, saying that none of the grounds Mr Keir’s experts and lawyers had put forward against the felling were “arguable”. He reserved his judgement which will be published at a later date. When it is I’ll add it to this blog (it has been, see the end of the blog!).
This leaves the protesters up a proverbial creek without a proverbial paddle. Of course, Keir immediately told the press and his supporters that he would appeal but there’s only one problem – he needs grounds to do so – and from what Mr Justice Holgate has said – he ain’t got any! Besides, by the time he might file his appeal, the remaining work at Jones’ Hill woods could well be completed. HS2 contractors (who’re still working on the site) have four days left on the license (that’s if it’s not extended because of the delays caused by legal shenanigans).
Yet again the protesters have wasted people’s time and money (both theirs and the taxpayers, who’ll pick up the tab one way of the other). It’s noteworthy that these cases are brought under the Aarhus convention, which means the Claimant’s liability for the costs incurred by the Defendant and Interested Parties is limited to £5,000, and the Defendant’s liability for the costs incurred by the Claimant is limited to £35,000. Whilst this convention allows access to the law for people who would otherwise find costs exorbitant I do wonder if their shouldn’t be a threshold of competency and realistic chance of success to prevent hopeless cases and ‘vexatious litigants’ from gumming up the courts, government and any defendants purely as a delaying tactic – especially when Crowdfunding is involved. Mind you, on top of the court fees there’s also the costs of Lawyers, the people who must be rubbing their hands in glee every time they see the words ‘stophs2’ and ‘crowdfunder’…
Of course, this wasn’t the only recent legal ‘success’ for HS2 antis that soon turned to ashes.
Another protester (Sarah Green) has had a long obsession with potential water pollution in the Colne Valley and had launched (yet another crowdfunded) legal appeal against a decision of the Information Commissioner to side with HS2 LTd that certain documents relating to piling work in the Colne Valley should be released.
I won’t bore you with the details. It’s a long, arcane argument and a decision that you can read here if you ever find yourself suffering from insomnia!
The Tribunal agreed with Green that certain papers should be released unredacted.
As usual, there was only one problem. Green had so convinced herself that these would prove that HS2 was hiding something all perspective was lost. The papers didn’t even relate to the substantive matter in hand – test piling for HS2’s Colne Valley viaduct. Green started her case in 2019. By the time the appeal was heard the world had well and truly moved on. Not only were the papers not the ‘smoking gun’ Green had imagined but the test piling had been completed. There was worse to come. Not only had the test piling not caused any of the pollution Green has been frightening people with – it also proved that the actual piles for the Colne Valley viaduct didn’t need to be driven as deeply as originally planned – thus saving considerable time, expense and carbon emissions!
The icing on the cake? Hs2 started the actual piling work for the pier foundations of Colne Valley viaduct back in March and has received full planning consent for the structure from Hillingdon Borough Council. Oh Dear!
Having failed in the courts as usual there’s little chance of HS2 being stopped on the ground either. The protest campaign has fallen into complete disarray in the past few weeks. Even HS2Rebellion have had to publish an embarrassing update to their protest camp list!
The reality is even worse than they admit. New Poors Piece at Steeple Claydon is also redundant as is Denham Ford. Neither stopped a thing and are largely abandoned following the pattern established by the Crackley camp. In fact, so many of the last remaining protesters are restricted by bail conditions that they’re left pulling stunts like trying to interfere with people who have a connection (however tenuous) with HS2, which is why a handful of them tried to disrupt a prison construction site in Wellingborough! Many others have drifted off to other Extinction Rebellion stunts like smashing HSBC bank windows at Canary Wharf or suchlike. Once the oxymoronic Wendover ‘Active Resistance’ Camp is evicted their campaign is literally all over bar the shouting (or tweeting)….
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 need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
Thank you!
UPDATE.
Since publishing this blog I’ve been sent a link to Mr Justice Holgate’s reasons for his decision, which can be found here. They make interesting reading as they highlight a number of things. Firsly, why Lang made her earlier decision and why Holgate overruled it and also an insight into the tactics of the protesters legal team – and something we’ve seen before. Namely, just bombard the Courts with paperwork and hope (in the words of the old saying) if you can’t blind them with science, baffle them with bullshit! Read this comment.
Point 114: “I accept the evidence in Mr. Dineen’s witness statement as to the impact which delay in felling the trees would have on this part of the HS2 project. If the felling could not take place until October 2021, earthworks could not begin until March or April 2022. Currently those works are scheduled to begin in June 2021. In paragraph 5 of IP2’s submission to the court dated 14 April 2021, a conservative estimate of the costs of the delay was given in the broad order of £25 to £50m. Mr. Dineen now says that those figures have been re-assessed as being in the range of £60.7-£88.8m. His statement dated 19 April 2021 was accompanied by a schedule. Plainly there has not been time for the claimant to consider this in any detail or to raise any questions. The claimant simply says that these costs will not be incurred because the claim could be dealt with at a super-expedited hearing, a point which I have already rejected. I proceed on the basis that the continuation of the injunction would cause additional costs in the region of at least £25m to £50m, and probably substantially more. I attach very considerable weight to this factor”.
Point 115: “I also attach considerable weight to the public interest in the continuation of work on the HS2 project without substantial interruption. Parliament has decided that it is in the public interest for the project to be undertaken and the Government has subsequently confirmed that it continues to agree with that decision (see e.g. Packham). There is no challenge to NE’s decision in this case applying regulation 55(2)(e) to the works which are the subject of this dispute.” Packham again!
Yet again this is a humiliation for the protesters legal representations and arguments “air of unreality”…”fanciful”? Oh dear. Plus, dumping paperwork on a judge in the hope something might stick.
Those of you of sufficiently advanced years or whom have a penchant for classic comedy may know of the 1960s satirical series ‘Beyond the fringe’ that starred Peter Cook, Jonathon Miller Alan Bennet and Dudley Moore. In one memorable sketch Peter Cook and Johnathon Miller spoofed the British in World War Two. The skit contained these (now famous) lines:
Peter Cook: “I want you to lay down your life, Perkins. We need a futile gesture at this stage. It will raise the whole tone of the war. Get up in a crate, Perkins, pop over to Bremen, take a shufti, don’t come back. Goodbye, Perkins. God, I wish I was going too.”
Parodies beget parodies – albeit sometimes unintentionally, and today – with their ‘war’ going so badly the anti HS2 protesters at Jones’ Hill wood provided their very own ‘futile gesture’!
This morning a handful of them attempted to block a road by the tried, tested (and serially failed) method of a ‘lock-on’. In this case an old oil drum containing concrete that a couple of protesters fastened their arms into. Some even boasted about the barrel used as it had been recovered from a previous camp and nicknamed ‘big boy’. The ‘cunning plan’ being this device would supposedly take ages to break into so they’d cause maximum disruption by preventing HS2 workers getting to work. Only a futile gesture it was…
The protesters and their ‘lock-on’ were in place before contractors arrived for work but they didn’t stop anyone getting there, they merely caused a traffic jam as vehicles were left nearby. The police soon arrived en-masse and shortly after midday the ‘lock-on’ had been cut up and rendered unusable and the pair of protesters taken away, presumably to be charged under S241 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 for trying to prevent people going about their lawful employment. So, that’ll be two more of the tiny number of protesters left having their wings clipped by bail conditions then! It’s a kamikaze tactic that doesn’t stop a thing, but it gives the protesters something to stick on social media where they’ll get lots of ‘thoughts and prayers’ from useless keyboard warriors – as if that will stop HS2!
Here’s the Facebook post from serially failed Green Party candidate Mark Keir who’s one of the tiny number of regular protesters at Jones’ Hill wood.
The numbers for likes, shares and comments aren’t exactly what you’d call setting the world alight…
At this stage I don’t know if other arrests were made, but the fact there’s only a handful of protesters taking part tells you all you need to know. Meanwhile, what was happening inside Jones’ Hill wood? It was business as usual for HS2 ecologists, contractors and security staff – as this screen-shot of another of Keir’s video posts demonstrates!
So much for stopping people getting to work! In the video Keir hurls insults and expletives at the HS2 workers and security people as they go about their work unhindered.
It was also business as usual at all the other 300+ worksites on the HS2 route too as this was the only protest. Elsewhere there were a few people grumbling as they filmed work going on, but that’s hardly stopping HS2, is it?
I wonder how many more of these futile gestures the protesters can afford to mount before they run out of volunteers? The more the merrier in some ways as it has the effect of stripping the camps and making them easier to evict when the time comes – which will be soon for the remaining few camps. It’s soo tempting to resort to another WW2 parody about ‘for you, the war is over’ – but I’ll resist the temptation – honest!
Of course, the protesters like to claim that they have almost universal local support for their stupid stunts. The reality is rather different. Some residents don’t take very kindly to having these waste of time protests blocking roads – as this illustrates…
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I’ve always said that Extinction Rebellion and HS2Rebellion are anything but real environmentalists. Both organisations have jumped on the ‘green’ bandwagon to further a wider (anti-capitalist) agenda and nothing more – hence some of their mad tactics that do nothing to promote tackling climate change. Exactly the opposite in fact. One only has to look at the way XR have frequently disrupted public transport in the UK, even going as far as disrupting electric public transport by gluing themselves to trains on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) or standing on the roofs of Underground trains!
HS2Rebellion are doing the same with High-Speed 2, opposing a green railway that is the only way we’ll have the rail capacity to get modal shift from road air to rail to cut our biggest source of Co2 emissions (transport) and meet our international obligations to tackle Climate Change.
Today, HS2Rebellion let the cat out of the bag by showing they either don’t understand the issues – or just don’t care. Their target was the news that Malaysia has cancelled the proposed High-Speed rail project between Kuala-Lumpur and Singapore and they used this (superficial) report on the BBC from a freelance journo based in Singapore. In the report it mentions that there are 30,000 local flights between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur per annum – as well as a 24 hour bus service. Here’s what XRebellion have to say on their Facebook page.
Yet again we have supposed ‘environmentalists’ playing along to the right-wing libertarian narrative about costs. This is bizarre. After all, aren’t they the ones who’re always telling us that there is no ‘Planet B’ and that the environment is priceless? Not if you’re intending to build High-Speed rail it seems (roads? No problem – carry on!).
What is it that these ‘environmentalists’ are deliberately ignoring? Simple, just how much carbon those different modes of transport generate. Take a look at this and compare domestic flights, buses and high-speed rail (mentioned as ‘Eurostar’ on this chart).
Here you have the blatant hypocrisy of XR and HS2Rebeliion exposed in black and white in one simple chart.
Over in the UK there’s a similar picture. The biggest market for domestic aviation is between Scotland and London’s airports. HS2 (like HS1 before it with flights to Brussels and Paris) will make severe inroads into that market by speeding up Anglo-Scottish services, as Chris Ogilvie often points out.
I have to declare an interest here. I know Malaysia (and Singapore) well. I’ve been travelling there since 1992 and maintain a keen interest in the areas political, economic and transport issues. In the past, I interviewed the then head of Malaysian Railways for the International Railway Journal and I maintain contacts inside both countries, which is why I know the BBC story isn’t the full story by any means. Even so, for ‘environmentalists’ to gloat over the failure to building a carbon-neutral alternative to 30,000 horribly polluting domestic flights a year (never mind all those 24 hour, 5 hour coach trips) is mad – but then, these people aren’t real environmentalists. What’s depressing is the number of genuine ‘green’ groups and people who’ve been taken in by them. We’ve now gone from saving the planet by any means to saving the planet – just as long as the price is right! This is why I’ve long maintained that the the UKs ‘green’ movement (or what passes for it) simply isn’t fit for purpose as they’ve become just another limb of the libertarian right. You have to ask, how (and why) did ‘greens’ suddenly start celebrating the failure of plans for high-speed rail networks whenever and wherever in the world they happen, and how on Earth can they still call themselves greens?
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As if their doomed campaign campaign hadn’t reached farcial new lows at Euston over the past few days, they’ve decided to descend even more into parody this afternoon.
Remember these are people are supposed to be concerned for the environment. Of course one of the best things for the environment is green travel options – like electric railways for example. Ah, but not if you’re of an Extinction Rebellion mindset! Remember they’ve a history of really dumb stunts like gluing themselves to electric trains which provide eco-friendly mass-transport around London. The last time they did this it really didn’t go down well with ordinary Londoners and XR hastily back-tracked, claiming it was a ‘mistake’ (damned right it was! Ed).
It appears they have the memories of Goldfish, because this has just appeared on the Hs2Rebellion Facebook page.
So, these ‘environmentalists’ have closed down a green railway in the capital in the height of a pandemic, this preventing key workers – which will include NHS staff, fire-service staff, and other public-transport workers getting to/from work. For example, University College Hospital (UCH) is only across the road from the station. How many people could potentially lose their lives because of stupid stunts like this unless this idiot is removed quickly and Euston station reopened – and what the hell do these people think they’re playing at?
My only hope is that the police now deploy the full force of the law here, as this has gone way beyond the bounds of legitimate protest. This is putting innocent people’s lives at risk.
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