We’ve had another mixed day here at Bigland Towers. On opening the bedroom blinds this morning it was obvious the glorious sunshine we’d had yesterday was a flash in a pan as the view across the valley was hampered by low cloud and poor visibility. Temperatures weren’t exactly balmy either! As the pair of us had plenty to keep us occupied with at home the weather wasn’t much of a problem – although sunshine and blue skies does help lift the spirits.
The weather certainly didn’t stop us voting in the local elections. Nor did the new need for photo ID. That’s because we’d already voted! For many years now we’ve had postal votes so our returns were in. I can’t help thinking the whole photo ID idea is a scam on the part of the Tories to stop people voting. Recorded cases of voter fraud have always been tiny, so why the sudden need for photographic ID? Plus, if I remember correctly, when there have been minor cases of impersonation it’s been with postal ballots – for which you don’t need ID! I’ll be very interested to see how this scheme pans out and if it backfires on the Tories in the was some observers are suggesting. Some older people (likely Tory voters) don’t have photographic ID and may well struggle to be allowed to vote. There would be a delicious irony if we see shrinkage in the Tory vote because the ‘wrong sort’ of voters have been disenfranchised!
Of course, the results won’t be clear until tomorrow and I’m not going to be staying up to watch as the pair of us have better things to do tomorrow. Dawn’s spent the day toiling like a Stakhanovite in order to clear as much of her work as possible before turning off her computer this evening ready for the next few days.
Me? I’ve been busy too although I did have a side trip to our local GPs in order to have check-up that I’m overdue for. Fair credit to our local surgery down in Sowerby Bridge. I only rang them about an appointment this morning yet they managed to squeeze me in to see a GP by 15:00! That’s an impressive service, but then they’ve always been good.
Now it’s late in the evening and the pair of us are packing, ready to head off to Turkey tomorrow whilst leaving the cottage in good order for our friends who’ll be looking after the place whilst we’re away. No doubt I’ll be doing some blogging over the next few days whilst I’m away, just don’t expect them to be mammoth travel guides to Istanbul as we’re going with the other members of the ‘5 from the 6’ so the intention’s to have fun!
It’s a good time to go, the UK weather forecast’s not looking good for the next few days. Plus, as a republican and not a royalist the next few days of Coronation fever and forelock tugging is something I’m happy to miss – especially when I reflect on the state of the UK economy right now. I’ve nothing against Charles (in fact, I rather like him) but there’s a whiff of ‘bread and circuses’ in the air that hopefully won’t travel as far as Turkey, although I suspect some of our number will be happy to watch the pageantry, pomp and circumstance on ‘catch-up’…
OK, time to go. Today’s picture is from the last time the ‘5 from the 6’ went on a jaunt which was to Berlin this time last year. Here’s the Oberbaum bridge which became an important crossing point between East and West during the ‘Cold War’ years.
I’m looking forward to being let loose in Istanbul with the camera, but I think hoping for blue skies like this may be optimistic…
I’ve a small favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, 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 me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
On Monday the Public Accounts Committee of MPs took oral evidence on the pause of HS2 construction at Euston station. Anyone expecting any real answers as to how we got to this sorry state will have been sadly disappointed at the session as it was more the ‘dunno’ show than generating any real insights. It was also curious for what was not said or discussed as much as what was.
For some reason the Committee decided to focus exclusively on Euston station itself and ignore another vital piece of that jigsaw. The Euston tunnels, which are essentially separate to the station but they’ve been paused too – as has construction of phase 2a from Handsacre Junction North of Birmingham as far as Crewe.
Now, Euston station is undoubtedly a mess but that’s no reason to postpone building the Euston approach tunnels. Plus, the tunnels are ‘critical path’ work. Without the TBMs for the Euston tunnels being launched from the Old Oak Common station box you can kiss goodbye to opening the HS2 station at Old Oak that’s now being talked about as a ‘temporary terminus’ for HS2 in London. Plus, if you don’t build the tunnels you won’t be running any HS2 trains into Euston – whatever final design’s cooked up!
The PAC session was billed as asking “how the risks to value for money are being managed” yet the session was all about the money and not about the value. We got bogged down in the minutiae of how much it would cost to secure the Euston site (even talking about hoardings) but nothing about the REAL value of money questions – such as how much the delays to building Euston would affect railway capacity and passenger usage of the truncated HS2 line to Old Oak Common. Nor was anything asked about the environmental costs of delaying HS2 – which are also financial – or the economic impact on ‘levelling up’.
Instead, what we heard from Dame Bernadette Kelly (Perm Sec at DfT), Alan Over (DG of High Speed Rail Group and SRO for HS2 at DfT) and Mark Thurston (Chief Exec at HS2 Ltd) was a sorry tale of government delay and dither and what happens when you let a Committee design something. Think of the problems with the Great Western Main Line electrification where everyone sticks their ‘pennorth’ into the specification so the costs keep rising.
Reading between the lines of what was being said at the Committee, this is what happened at Euston. Costs kept rising as Government changed its mind on the size of the oversite development (which impacted on the rail design), a new ‘partnership’ was established which added other priorities and considerations and the whole thing grew so that the agreed 2019 budget hopelessly was unrealistic when the wish-list was presented to the construction team who were meant to wrap it all up into a final, costed design that they could build.
I suppose you could describe it like this. You want your dream kitchen so you and all your family set an unrealistic budget, then you pore over an out of date catalogue whilst accepting suggestions from your neighbors and relatives on what’s needed. Then you call the builder. The builder weighs everything up, itemises it, sucks his teeth and tells you exactly how much that little lot will cost in the real world today.
Now, I have sympathy with the idea that Euston had to be paused. It’s clear the existing wish list (I won’t grace it with the name of ‘plan’) was far too expensive and that the dither and delays had added to the costs. Remember, Euston was originally expected to open at the end of 2026 with the rest of phase – despite what Kelly and Merriman have previously claimed, which I dealt with here. Plus, in the original plan we were going to get more (11 platforms) for less money. As we’re now 1/3 of the way through 2023 and there’s still no viable plan and in the intervening time we’ve seen rampant inflation, cost pressures due to Covid, the Ukraine war and Brexit so it’s hardly surprising costs have increased.
Some of this was touched on at the hearing, some of it wasn’t. Was was studiously ignored was the Government’s involvement in this expensive fiasco. Obviously, the witnesses were going to have to tread carefully (if you’re a civil servant criticising this Government can be very bad for your career) but not all the PAC members were Tories and could have asked awkward questions. The bizarre thing is none did. The nearest we got was Labour’s Nick Smith MP, who did ask some direct open questions and didn’t take fuzzy replies as an answer. But otherwise, it was a very poor show. Many questions were asked about ‘exactly’ how much the shutdown was going to cost and all three witnesses gave the same answer – ‘dunno’ – because no-one’s worked it out yet! The decision was only taken around 4 weeks ago and no-one’s looked at all the implications and crunched the numbers – which makes the Transport Minister Mark Harper’s initial claim that this was being done to ‘save’ money look even more ridiculous.
Mark Thurston did shed some light on what happens next. £2bn has been spent on the Euston area since the project began in what he describes as ‘no regrets’ investment (meaning its needed whatever the new station plans are). This includes all the preparatory and enabling work, all the works in the surrounding areas (like building new homes) and the work to the London Underground. A further £220 million will be spent on completing the TfL vent shaft and substation, the new construction skills centre and the station facilities block. This work will run to the autumn when the Euston station site will be secured and shut down. Ctte Chair Dame Meg Hillier questioned how long this would mean the site would be shut down as the timescale Thurston was suggesting was less than 2 years, or was it? Thurston explained that he expected the site to reopen in Spring 2025.
Alan Over did make two things clear in response to questions. One was that there’s no way the savings being asked for can be made without cutting the ‘wish list’ that’s been included in the final Euston design that the builders costed (which came in at £4.8bn) . the other was that, depending on what final ‘wish list’ is agreed by all parties, the Government may need to cough up some more money.
After 2 hours of being none the wiser on costs or timetables and with not having asked any of the really big question on value (never mind costs) the Ctte wound up. I can only hope they return to these matters having thought about the ‘big picture’ stuff and the real implications of the delays to HS2 and don’t get bogged down in the minutiae of mothballing building sites, but I won’t hold my breath…
Looking down on the Euston HS2 construction site in October 2021 at the bit no-one at the PAC talked about. The Euston tunnels…
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Today’s been an odd start to the week. I was full of determination to hit the ground running after a lovely weekend and the day started well as I hit all my targets for exercise, then spent several hours working in the office getting paperwork and pictures organised. I even managed to tear Dawn away from her computer so that the two of us could go for a walk together. Then, all of a sudden my batteries drained, leaving me completely out of energy. It happens to me maybe once or twice a year and I’m assuming it’s down to doing too much whilst running on a nearly empty stomach (although I’d have thought a gut full of porridge would have kept me going). Poor Dee was quite concerned as it’s never happened when we’ve been together before.
As a supermarket shop was part of the plan I had a short sit-down whilst Dee stocked up on various bits which included cereal bars – one of which I soon scoffed in order to give me the boost I needed to get home. It seemed to work although it was a couple of hours before I felt energised enough to get my last couple of thousand steps in to hit my daily target.
Now I’m having a relaxing evening at home. Dawn’s been fabulous and sorted out jacket potatoes with tuna, mayo and a side-salad whilst I’ve been ‘busy’ watching the Public Accounts Committee hearing on the debacle of the HS2 station at Euston which has been ‘paused’ for a couple of years whilst the Govt and DfT work out what to do. I’ll blog at greater length about this when the transcript is published. I took copious notes but there’s nothing like having it verbatim.
My take from the hearing is that this really is just a pause and HS2 will make it to Euston. The railway’s an expensive white elephant without Euston as Old Oak Common simply doesn’t have the capacity to be the London terminus. Mark Thurston made it clear that whilst contractors are being stood down, the contracts haven’t been ended, there’s merely an agreement to pause them. Plus, some work at Euston (to the tune of £200-220m) will continue until the autumn as the TfL substation, skills centre and Euston station facilities block will be completed whilst the station site is made secure. So, in theory, the ‘pause’ could be as little as 18 months – if people can come up with a viable new station design in that time, although the depressing thing seems to be the focus on cost, rather than anything else – like what we need the station to actually do.
Interestingly, what wasn’t mentioned at all was Bernadette Kelly’s claim at the Transport Select Ctte hearing that opening Euston later was the plan all along.
Right, onto the picture of the day and another sign that spring is here – seen in our local woods earlier…
Hopefully my batteries will be recharged by the morrow as I’ve lots I want to do this week…
I’ve a small favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, 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 me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
OK, no-one actually expects the Tories tell the truth anymore. Let’s face it, they’ve spent years blatantly lying to Parliament and the public and it’s been from top to bottom. MPs, Junior Ministers, Cabinet Ministers and even Prime Ministers no longer feel the need to tell the truth and will tell the most awful whoppers if they think they can get away with it (and they often do). That’s what happens when you elect as Prime Minister a man twice sacked for lying during his career. Yes you Boris Johnson.
Johnson may have gone but the culture remains only now it seems that culture of rewriting history has spread to senior members of the civil service who really should know better.
On Wednesday 19th April the Transport Select Committee had an oral session where they heard evidence on transport matters (including HS2) from Rt Hon. Mark Harper MP, Secretary of State for Transport and Dame Bernadette Kelly DCB, Permanent Secretary, Department for Transport. You can read the transcript of the session here.
It was an awkward session for Harper as he had to admit that delaying sections of HS2 wouldn’t save money as claimed, the whole raison d’être the government had given for the decision. Embarrassingly, it was the rabidly anti HS2 MP and fellow Tory MP Greg Smith (MP for Nimby Bucks) who made Harper squirm on this point!
But it’s the answer to Question 556 when Bernadette Kelly interjects that things get very odd. Here’s what she said;
“The last thing I would say is to the point you made at the beginning about pressure on other parts of the network. It was always anticipated that Old Oak Common would open in advance of Euston and that there would be a gap between the two stations being operational. That’s always been a factor in the planning for HS2″.
Eh? This is blatantly untrue!
Anyone familiar with the history of HS2 from the beginning will know that Euston was planned to accept HS2 trains from day 1 of phase 1 opening. It was a given in all the business cases, environmental statements and plans right up to the Oakervee review published in February 2020. Oakervee’s report addressed the mess Euston had become and suggested Old Oak Common as a temporary terminus whilst Euston was sorted out. Kelly must know this as the Oakervee review happened on her watch!
Piecing together the evidence for the truth is difficult as some of the original HS2 documents have ‘disappeared’ – especially appendices to larger documents which contained timelines, but plenty still exist to prove that Euston was always meant to open from Day 1. Here’s a selection.
In 2014 the then Chairman of HS2, Sir David Higgins gave an interview to the magazine Transport Intelligence. It makes interesting reading, not least because it contains some graphs, including one of the original timeline for building HS2’s Euston station.
Meanwhile, here’s a link to the 2013 strategic case for HS2. Where does it mention Euston is to open ‘later’ than Old Oak Common? It doesn’t. Exactly the opposite in fact. Look at the first sentence here.
And there’s more. Here’s a link to a February 2018 Government press release that also confirms Euston was expected to open at the same time as the other 3 phase 1 stations (Old Oak Common, Solihull and Curzon St).
Now, I’m sure if I spend another day digging I can find lots more evidence of the fact Euston station was planned to open as part of phase 1 from day 1, but there’s already enough here to establish that. But, if anyone would like to help by forwarding links to reports or charts I’ll be happy in include them and expand this blog.
So, what’s Kelly playing at? Kelly has been permanent secretary for the Department for Transport since 18 April 2017. It’s inconceivable that she wasn’t aware that Euston was always planned to open the same time as the rest of phase 1, so how can she justify misleading the Transport Select Committee on this matter?
If if Kelly’s misinformation wasn’t bad enough, on the 17th April Shadow Transport Minister Louise Hague tabled a written question of the secretary of state for transport, Hugh Merriman MP.
“To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of recent changes to the construction schedule for High Speed Rail 2 on passenger demand for Elizabeth Line services; and whether his Department plans to take steps to address potential changes in demand”.
Merriman’s reply repeated the misinformation about Euston.
“As has always been planned, Old Oak Common will act as HS2’s temporary London terminus prior to the opening of the High Speed station at Euston”
As has been shown, this is blatantly untrue and now we have Ministers indulging in rewriting the facts. As this was a written question I’m unclear if this can be classed as misleading Parliament. That used to be a serious offense, a resigning matter before this Tory government came along. Now, to be fair to Merriman, he’s only been in post for a short time, so could be forgiven for not knowing the full history of HS2. So, who fed him this line?
What are Ministers and civil servants playing at here? The shambles that the Government has made of Euston is clearly an embarrassment and one that makes the UK look pathetic on the world stage. ‘World – beating’? Oh, please, we can’t even build a bloody railway in one piece!
I’ve a small favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, 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 me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
Not a great start to the week this week. I’ve been pretty optimistic since my return from Asia but today (for a variety of reasons) that optimism evaporated. To be honest with the UK the way it is at the moment optimism is a bit of a slog. One only has to look at the mess the Government is making of the rail industry (and as a consequence – net zero) to see that. Add in the fact that once again bankers have been wankers and done their best to crash the global economy, plus a few issues closer to home and it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimism and ‘what am I doing here?’ It will pass. It always does, but there’s no denying the world’s in a mess right now and the UK feels like a failing country. Not that the Tories seem to care. They seem to have given up any real hope of winning the next election on the basis of any competency. Instead they’re cutting back spending to save money for election bribes whilst planning to fight their next campaign on ‘culture wars’ rather than anything tangible. Let’s face it, they’ve no claim to economic competence (Brexit, anyone?) and corruption has been rampant, so what else is left other than to sow more division with such nebulous crap as the ‘war on woke’ whilst at the same time trying to demonise trans people and their rights. It’s straight out of the American far-right playbook of course – hence the ridiculous huffing and puffing over drag acts being a ‘danger’ to children – as if no-one remembers watching mainstream TV in the 1970s where you had Danny la Rue and Stanley Baxter with their own shows, or the Two Ronnies and Les Dawson, and let’s not even mention pantomime. I have a feeling that the next election is going to be a very nasty and divisive affair with repercussions that will go on long after the result is declared.
I know, I’m a right ray of sunshine today, but this is my blog so my rules – and feelings!
Anyway, I’m hoping for a better day tomorrow. In the meantime, here’s today’s picture which adds a splash of much-needed colour to life. I spotted this plant in the gardens by the bay in Singapore but I’d no idea what it was. I’ve now been able to identify it as . Mussaenda erythrophylla, otherwise known as Ashanti blood.
I’ve a small favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, 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 me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
After the all my exertions (and steps walked) yesterday, today’s been a day for relaxing. The good news for me is that my back seems to be in full recovery mode so the pain I felt a few days ago is really subsiding. It hasn’t gone completely by any means, but I now feel confident about planning my future travels. To be honest, I’m quite content here in Georgetown, there’s so much to see and do, but it is the most expensive place in Malaysia (food, accommodation etc) – even the country’s capital – Kuala Lumpur, is cheaper. But this place is special, which is why I’ll probably stay a few more days. The only question now is which way to go. North back into Thailand or stay in Malaysia. Yesterday, Nick pointed out something I wasn’t aware of. You can only make two land crossings into Thailand in any calender year. This is to clamp down on the famous ‘visa runs’ that supplied a lot of traffic from Thailand to Georgetown and back. It’s fine if you fly in (which I don’t want to do) and you can get a Thai visa that will allow you another crossing. It’s free, but you have to spend a day at a Thai embassy applying for one and said visa takes up a whole page in your passport.
I’ve not been up to much today other than editing pictures from the past few weeks whilst taking a daily wander to explore the area. The film crew who’ve been occupying the East part of Jalan Muntri have taken over more side streets as their filming expands, which has led to a bit of a diversion for me and the locals, but there’s plenty of other options. As it’s only Tuesday the place is somewhat quieter as the weekenders aren’t here.
When I was strolling back from getting something to eat I bumped into a group I helped last night as they’d got hopelessly lost but whom I was able to help with directions. Tonight we stopped for a chat. They were a Kiwi and a Singaporean Sikh, along with their Asian wives/girlfriends. Whilst the girlfriends found a bar the three of us got talking about travel – and politics from our own regional perspectives. The Sikh chap (I only know of his background because he told me) is what Indian friends have told me is known as a ‘cut’ – in that he has no beard, long hair or turban, but still identifies as Sikh. The conversation was really interesting – as was he – and it would have been very tempting to continue it in a bar but I’m trying to be good. So now I’m at home typing this!
To pique your interest in Asia here’s a couple more pictures from Georgetown.
We’re getting thunderstorms and rain showers very often right now. Yesterday I saw this localised shower sweep across parts of Georgetown from Butterworth. I’m going to miss my morning alarm-clocks provided by the local Mosque. Admittedly, this one isn’t *that* local, but it is just down the road. This is the Kapitan Keling Mosque whom the nearby main street takes its name from.
I’ve a small favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, 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 me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
I’ve not blogged about these people for quite some time for the simple reason there’s been nothing of interest to blog about. But I wanted to do a round-up and potted history as I still get asked where they went and my last blog on the subject is way out of date. So, what did happen to them?
The short answer is, in 2022 their campaign collapsed completely with the demise of the Extinction Rebellion inspired ‘HS2Rebellion’ and the last remaining protest camp. Politically, their campaign had given up the ghost several years before.
This was always going to happen. Support had been ebbing away for years as it had become clear to all but the most blinkered that pretending HS2 could be stopped when construction was well underway was a fools errand. The protest camps were always a sideshow. They were an attempt to attract publicity and raise funds but they never stood a chance of success as they were poorly supported, many were in the wrong place and the people in them were such a rag-bag of conflicting ideologies and interests. A mixture of Nimbys, part-timers who just turned up to party plus a tiny hard-core of ‘professional’ protesters who drifted from one lost cause to another. The camps also attracted their fair share of ne’er-do-wells and damaged people, hence some camps getting reputations for thievery, sexual harassment and violence. Some young idealists attracted to the cause through social media soon had their dreams shattered by the reality of life in the camps and never returned. Plus, wealthy Chiltern Nimbys and a rag-bag of anarchists and left-wing dreamers (and a few thieves) were always going to be uneasy bedfellows – as it proved. Many opponents of HS2 in the Chilterns weren’t too sad to see the back of the camps.
The kamikaze tactics of people in the camps also limited their effectiveness as once people were arrested they had bail conditions imposed which kept them away from HS2 sites. Other had injunctions taken out against them which kept them away from places like the first protest camp at Harvil Rd near London. Support also waned when the camps nearest to London were evicted as that’s where the biggest pool of weekenders and party people came from. The final camp was in rural Staffordshire, far away from the Nimby heartlands of the Chilterns and London, plus local support was lukewarm to say the least. Money began to dry up too. In the past people had donated 10s of 1000s via various crowdfunders but these became mired in controversy as no-one ever knew where the money actually went. This led to some very public spats and fallings out which I’ve documented in the past.
The final nails in the coffin were the eviction of the ‘Bluebell’ camp in Staffordshire which fell extremely quickly. Three activists retreated into a tunnel that had been dug underneath the camp and stayed their for 47 days in an attempt to attract publicity, but they received very little. No-one was really interested in three people in a hole in the ground that was so far away from the Londoncentric media. Euston Sq gardens it wasn’t!
Meanwhile, events in the High Court in Birmingham were about to hammer home the final nail…
HS2 Ltd had applied to the High Court for a route-wide injunction that would ban any further disruptive protests or trespass on HS2 land. Over the years HS2 security and bailiffs had amassed a huge amount of evidence showing the dangerous, disruptive and violent nature of the protesters and this evidence was submitted to the Judge. Ironically, evidence was also provided by the protesters themselves through some of the video recording and livestreams they’d stuck on social media in an attempt to drum up support and funds. This backfired spectacularly in court! The old adage about ‘give ’em enough rope’ couldn’t have been more apt! There are thousands and thousand of pages of court documents, which you can find here.
After months of deliberations, Mr Justice Knowles granted the route-wide injunction on the 20th September 2022.
Contrary to claims from the protesters, the injunction did not make protesting against HS2 ‘illegal’. The injunction’s very specific in its wording about what it covers, which is;
(2) PERSONS UNKNOWN ENTERING OR REMAINING WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF THE CLAIMANTS ON, IN OR UNDER LAND ACQUIRED OR HELD BY THE CLAIMANTS IN CONNECTION WITH THE HIGH SPEED TWO RAILWAY SCHEME SHOWN COLOURED PINK, AND GREEN ON THE HS2 LAND PLANS AT https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hs2-route-wide-injunction-proceedings (“THE HS2 LAND”) WITH THE EFFECT OF DAMAGING AND/OR DELAYING AND/OR HINDERING THE CLAIMANTS, THEIR AGENTS, SERVANTS, CONTRACTORS, SUBCONTRACTORS, GROUP COMPANIES, LICENSEES, INVITEES AND/OR EMPLOYEES
(3) PERSONS UNKNOWN OBSTRUCTING AND/OR INTERFERING WITH ACCESS TO AND/OR EGRESS FROM THE HS2 LAND IN CONNECTION WITH THE HS2 SCHEME WITH OR WITHOUT VEHICLES, MATERIALS AND EQUIPMENT, WITH THE EFFECT OF DAMAGING AND/OR DELAYING AND/OR HINDERING THE CLAIMANTS, THEIR AGENTS, SERVANTS, CONTRACTORS, SUBCONTRACTORS, GROUP COMPANIES, LICENSEES, INVITEES AND/OR EMPLOYEES WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF THE CLAIMANTS
(4) PERSONS UNKNOWN CUTTING, DAMAGING, MOVING, CLIMBING ON OR OVER, DIGGING BENEATH OR REMOVING ANY ITEMS AFFIXED TO ANY TEMPORARY OR PERMANENT FENCING OR GATES ON OR AT THE PERIMETER OF THE HS2 LAND, OR DAMAGING, APPLYING ANY SUBSTANCE TO OR INTERFERING WITH ANY LOCK OR ANY GATE AT THE PERIMETER OF THE HS2 LAND WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF THE CLAIMANTS
With the injunction in force it was game over for the protesters who’ve never attempted to set up another camp, or break the terms of the injunction. To reinforce the seriousness of their position, a couple of protesters were given jail time for contempt of court. As usual the protesters tried to spin this as being jailed for protesting. It was no such thing, but you flout the authority of the courts at your peril! One of the protesters, Elliott Cuciurean (aka ‘Jellytot) remains behind bars now.
In October 2022 one of the protesters named in the injunction (James Taylor, aka ‘Jimmy Knaggs’) started to raise money for an appeal, but his application was refused on the 9th December 2022. There will be no appeal. In typically underhand fashion, the news of the refusal of leave to appeal has been kept quiet. It’s not mentioned on any of the protest groups Facebook pages. Instead, there’s still a Crowdfunder running to raise money to fund the non-existent appeal – although no-one’s been mug enough to donate for quite some time. Here’s a screenshot from today.
No update since May 2022. No news the appeal was refused but the crowdfunder’s renewed for another 30 days every time it expires. With just 10 days left that means it was last renewed Early January – long after the appeal was refused!. Sounds like a scam to me…
So, it’s game over for the protest camps and the protesters trying to interfere with HS2. Now scattered to the four winds with many of them having simply disappeared, there’s no way back for them. HS2 ‘rebellion’ exists only as a few social media accounts which occasionally recycle the odd newspaper article critical of HS2 or try and raise more money for the lad in prison. No-one’s trying to stop HS2 anymore…
The political campaign died even earlier. Originally, there had been 2 main groups opposing HS2. The High Speed 2 Action Alliance (HS2AA) based in the Chilterns and ‘StopHs2’ based in Kenilworth in Warwickshire. HS2AA gave up in 2016 after getting the Wendover tunnel extension as that was on their doorstep. StopHS2 staggered on until 2020. They were only two people, Joe Rukin in Kenilworth and Penny Gaines in err…Bournemouth! Joe was the main mouthpiece who would do the media interviews where he’d often lie through his teeth – all to no avail! He’s left behind an interesting legacy on Social Media – a trail of lies and half-truths which really haven’t aged well.
During the injunction proceedings Rukin was named as a defendant and was forced to admit that StopHS2 had given up campaigning against HS2 in 2020!
As for the supposed ‘StopHs2 North’, it doesn’t exist. There’s no such organisation. You can’t find any trace of it anywhere. Stop HS2 have even given up posting stuff on their website now. From posting stuff daily they only managed 6 stories last year, the last of which was in June 2022. There’s been nothing in 2023 and I doubt there will be.
Political pressure was the only hope of stopping HS2 but it never stood a chance as it never had any real political support in Parliament, especially in the Lords which has always been very pro HS2. When the Phase 1 HS2 bill passed 2nd reading in 2014 only 41 MPs voted against the bill. More than half of them are no longer MPs!
The Phase 2a Bill (West Midlands to Crewe) passed 2nd reading on the 30th January 2018 with another crushing majority of 295 to 12. Interestingly enough, some of the 41 MPs who voted against Phase 1 voted FOR phase 2a whilst others abstained! I blogged about it at the time here.
Phase 2b (Crewe to Manchester) passed 2nd reading on the 20th June 2022. By this time those voting against had dwindled to just 6 whilst 206 MPs voted for. The 6 were the usual suspects, including Greg Smith the hardline Brexiter from Buckinghamshire and (equally Brexity) Bill Cash. In fact, a Venn diagram of MPs who’re rabid Brexit supporters but who also oppose HS2 would be an almost perfect circle. This would encompass the few former Labour MPs who opposed HS2, like Kate Hoey. Co-incidence? I think not. You can see the malign influence of the Tufton St cabal at work here. After the 2019 election when there was a new intake of MPs noises were made about reforming a Parliamentary group of MPs who opposed HS2 called the HS2 Review Group but it never came to anything.
The problem for these few MPs and the Tufton St cabal is there are no more Parliamentary votes on HS2 for quite some considerable time. Legislation to build HS2 all the way to Manchester has passed. 2nd reading is the only stage that really matters as that establishes the principle of the bill. 3rd reading in the Commons and the process in the Lords can’t change that. By the time the next Hybrid bill appears we’ll have a new Government. Barring a disaster the Tories will be out on their arses and Labour will be in with a huge majority – and Labour are committed to building HS2 in full.
So, there’s really nowhere for the remaining opponents of HS2 to turn. They’re a dead duck politically and the protesters are finished. All that’s left is a dwindling bunch of Nimbys, right-wing libertarians and faux ‘greens’ wasting their time ranting in their social media echo-chamber. No-one sees them as a threat to HS2.
Meanwhile, HS2 construction is speeding up unopposed. Many of the major structures on Phase 1 are already under construction (for example, the Chiltern tunnels are already 50% complete) and work will only ramp up more this year. Civils Work on Phase 2 a to Crewe will be starting shortly whilst the Petitioning Ctte for Phase 2b from Crewe to Manchester will be sitting through 2023. It will be interesting to see how many people actually petition this Ctte as there were always so few StopHS2 ‘action’ groups on this section of the line.
I suspect this will be my final blog on the anti Hs2 campaign as it’s ceased to exist in any meaningful way. Oh, there might be some mad ones to poke fun at sometime during the year, but that’s it. It really is all over now. Most of my time now will be spent reporting on progress building HS2, not on those who so spectacularly failed to stop it!
I’m sitting here at the keyboard trying to work out how to make sense of such a tumultuous year without disappearing into repetitious rambling so I’m going to use a few headings to help – although there’s bound to be a few crossovers in the subjects. Let’s face it, it’s been one hell of a year, both in the UK and wider world, so it’s no surprise the the Collins dictionary word of the year 2022 is “permacrisis” – it sums up the situation perfectly. Having seen the back of Donald Trump and with Covid looking like it was burning itself out with no more nasty mutations the year started with some hope, but that was soon dashed.
Politics
On 24th February Russia invaded the Ukraine. ‘Special military operation’ (as the Russians called it) my arse, this was a full scale attempt to annex to country. It’s led to the largest refugee situation in Europe since world war two (both Ukrainian, and Russians who’ve fled their own country), along with the most destructive and devastating war since 1939. It’s also looking likely to lead to the collapse of Russia as it’s clear the war was a disastrous miscalculation of the part of Vladimir Putin. The pressures on the Russian economy due to sanctions plus the increasing lawlessness within the country as conscripts return from the war, disillusioned (and often with smuggled weapons) and the increasing isolation of the country are threads that are unwinding the fabric of the nation. It’s hardly surprising. Ordinary Russians are being kept tin the dark by their Government, but the scale of the Russian losses in men and equipment estimated by the Ukrainians (and others like the Oryx website) are staggering.
The knock-on effects across Europe and the UK have been huge. The British economy, already reeling from Covid, Brexit and 12 years of increasingly chaotic mismanagement by the Tories was then hit by massive increases in energy costs. In short. It’s a shit-storm and sadly, there’s no sign of it getting better in 2023. The Tories have run out of ideas (other than feathering their own nests) but they seem to have an endless supply of hopeless and hapless Prime Ministers. You may have thought serial liar Boris Johnson and his ‘oven ready’ Brexit deal was bad but after a painfully long election process Liz Truss said ‘hold my beer’ and managed to crash the UK economy and make the UK an international laughing-stock in just 49 days – the shortest tenure any British Prime Minister. Then there was the death of the Queen, which paralyzed the UK at the same time. Cards on the table (to quote right-wing Twitter trolls) – I’m not a monarchist, although having met many (including the late Queen and her husband) of them I have no problem with the people, just the institution. Most Brits have no idea how that institution has an impact on their daily lives as all they see is the pomp and circumstance – or read about the bitching that goes on in the UK press about them as a useful diversion from the real world. The Romans had ‘bread and circuses’, we have the spectator sport of Harry and Meghan vs the Palace as part of the extension of the right-wingers ‘war on woke’. It fills the news media to keep you distracted and stops you looking at the bigger picture.
Unabashed after their ousting of Boris Johnson – then Liz Truss, the Tory party then turned to an also ran – Rishi Sunak, a multi-millionaire who’s so out of touch his PR stunt serving food to homeless people went so spectacularly wrong a team of comedy writers would have dismissed it as too far-fetched. ‘Do you work in business’? Oh, FFS! With this bunch unashamedly clinging onto power for as long as they possibly can (2024) the new year looks to hold little cheer. It’s clear Rishi Sunak is a weak leader, but then his party is ungovernable. It’s riven by factions and dominated by swivel-eyed loons inside and outside the cabinet. Privately (and not so privately) many of them realise that they next election is lost, the question now is how much damage they’ll do before they’re turfed out when the votes are cast. There’s a lot of nest-feathering going on at the expense of ordinary people and I doubt the extent of the corruption will be revealed until (and unless) the next government hold some enquiries. The current situation goes to prove the old adage that oppositions don’t win elections, Governments lose them. Labour under Keir Starmer have vanquished the ghost of Jeremy Corbyn, the man who gifted the Tories such a huge majority in 2019 (cue howls of outrage, bluster and selective statistics from Corbynistas) but that’s all they’ve done. People will vote for them out purely for the fact they’re the only way to oust the Tories – not because they feel inspired by them. Starmer’s strategy to pretend he can make Brexit work may be seen as clever politicking, but it doesn’t make him look honest – and we desperately need a return to honest politics after so many years of lies and deceit. In the meantime, Brexit will continue to unravel. It’s painfully obvious that it’s a turd that can’t be polished but Brexit is like a religion to some, it’s an article of faith and they’ll cling onto it. But faith can’t make fiction fact and the economic harm its doing to the UK will continue to manifest itself no matter how deep its adherent stick their heads in the sand. Now people can travel again it’s not hard to see the disparity when you cross the channel. The EU hasn’t collapsed as predicted, supermarket shelves are full and despite the energy crisis caused by the war, living standards (and wages) are higher. Not only that but other countries are still clamouring to join the EU. In fact on January 1st Croatia adopted the Euro as its currency and also joined Schengen (the free travel area). It’s easy to see just how isolationist and out of step the UK is. Europe’s going forward and we’re going backwards.
Railways
It’s been another torrid time on the UK rail network. Just as the system seemed to be recovering from Covid and passenger numbers growing far quicker than many pessimists predicted we’ve had a series of debilitating strikes with central government and the unions at loggerheads. Whilst regional governments in Scotland and Wales are willing to compromise and find a way forward through pay agreements, central government ain’t. They see it as a trial of strength and a way of shoring up their collapsing vote (have you seen the opinion polls recently?) by playing hardball to pander to their hardcore. We’ve had the worst Transport Minister for decades (Grant Shapps) followed by a revolving door. In the meantime, the Treasury (as always) are dictating terms via the DfT and there’s no sign of any political coherence – much less a strategic plan that will last longer than the next Ministerial appointment. It’s a depressing time when there’s so many real issues needing serious answers – and a long term plan (hello ‘climate change’ anybody? That you despair. On the bright side, Crossrail – sorry the Elizabeth line – opened on the 24th May and proved to be a massive success, as many of us knew it would be. The expression ‘build it and they will come’ is appropriate for so many UK rail projects – and sod the useless and BCR (Benefit Cost Ratio) calculations which so often prove to be that conservative they’re useless. A fag-packet would be embarrassed to have them scrawled on its back.
London’s East End never used to look like this! This is the new Crossrail interchange station at Whitechapel. Once the territory of ‘Jack the Ripper’. Murder it ain’t!
The dumb thing? The future of the railways should be a no-brainer due to the need to get modal shift from road/air to rail to tackle climate change. But then you have the problem of competing political ideologies and the fact the Tories are underpinned by so many crazies from the libertarian far-right who’re doing their best to pretend it’s not real. Thankfully, they’ve not managed to stop the majority of building High-Speed 2. Forget the Nimbys and protesters, they never had nay political clout, it was people close to Boris ‘two-faced’ Johnson who’ve done the most damage to the project by paring away at it without any credible replacement, timetable or plan. The bright side? The next Labour government (because that’s what we’ll have) have committed to building HS2 in full. What will drag on is the interminable and utterly pointless political arguments over privatisation vs nationalisation which is a distraction from actually making the railways work for everyone. ‘Great British Railways’ is now dead. The reorganisation’s stalled, but we have no idea what will replace it. Instead we have the classic British ‘buggers muddle’ with the railways caught between a rock (the Treasury) and a hard place (The Dept of Transport), made worse by a Government that has no idea what it’s doing, other than trying to cling on to power. Here in West Yorkshire we do have some things to look forward to as at least the Trans-Pennine route upgrade is going ahead, although that’s still a mixed picture. We know what it will look like East of Huddersfield as far as Dewsbury where work’s already started, but we’ve no real idea how it will look Westwards, or how this supposed new line from Liverpool that’s (somehow) going to end in the village of Marsden will happen – if it ever does as there’ll be another election before work even starts!
Travel
I’ve been fortunate to have several breaks from the Septic Isle in 2022, Most of which have involved working (and meeting friends) in Germany which gives a completely different perspective from this bizarre up it’s own arse island nation many people choose to be marooned on. Then the pair of us had a a fortnight in Greece, which showed us another side. Funny how Rhodes – despite it being an island – didn’t suffer the supermarket shortages and empty shelves that have become a matter of routine in the UK – and that includes from imported goods. Once could almost imagine being in a customs union and single-market had advantages! Now, in the new year I’m preparing to take a break from Britain for a couple of months and catch up with old friends and happenings in South-East Asia. No doubt the contrasts to the UK will be very interesting, expecially as I’ll be starting in Singapore, the island state that some Tories touted as their aspiration for the Brexit Britain, with London becoming Singapore on Thames. It was all bollocks of course.
2023. Things to look forward to…
I’d love to be able to say ‘a general election’ but that’s extremely unlikely! Instead I’m looking forward to a Russian defeat and Ukrainian victory this year. I’m hopeful that there might be some economic cheer too but with this lot in charge I’d suggest that will be more down to luck and the actions of others than the Government. I’m also looking forward to seeing High Speed 2 construction proceeding apace. The project passed some impressive milestones in 2022, the anti HS2 rebellion collapsed as their camps were swept away and the few remaining occupants scattered to the four winds. I’ll be visiting as many locations as I can in 2023 to report on progress.
In the meantime, let me wish you all a peaceful and optimistic New Year and all the best for 2023.
Thanks for popping by and reading some of the 264 blogs I published in 2022. This site had 72,006 views from 115 nations last year plus several donations towards helping me cover the (not inconsiderable) costs of running my blog. Thank you one and all! And finally, a big thank you (and love) to Dawn, my wife, for putting up with me disappearing many an evening to pen one of these blogs. Thanks Babe!
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We’ve had a wintery start to the week here at Bigland Towers. Snow arrived in the Calder Valley at the weekend and, whilst it’s hardly deep and crisp and even the dusting we’ve had is certainly sticking around. To make matters worse the temperature plummeted today with the mercury never getting above -2 but hitting -5 this morning whilst the valley itself disappeared behind a mask of freezing fog. So, I’ve spent the entire day indoors, not even making it out for my daily stroll. Instead, I’ve beavered away in the office sorting out pictures and filing in order to create some space in the calendar for the future (more about that later).
I doubt I’ll be venturing far for the rest of the week. Whilst the temperature’s due to creep above zero towards the end of the week there’s another problem. Tomorrow sees the start of the next round of rail strikes, only our local operator (Northern) has essentially thrown in the towel. They’re not bothering to run any service at all through Halifax and the Calder Valley until Sunday! That’s’ 5 days without any services across most of their network, which covers the whole of the North, taking in Cumbria, Yorkshire, the North-West and Cheshire, including major cities like Manchester. and Leeds (which sees a skeleton service based on the Aire valley electric trains, see below).
Sadly, there’s no sign of this dispute coming to an end. It looks like it will drag on well into next year. There’s conflicting reports coming out about who’s to blame for the breakdown in negotiations, as my RAIL magazine colleague, Phil Haigh, pointed out on Twitter earlier.
Whilst I can appreciate both sides of this dispute the people I feel for are those caught in the crossfire. I don’t just mean passengers, although having no trains here for the rest of the week when we have snow and ice on the ground is hardly desirable. I feel for the many small businesses who rely on the railways for their trade. The shop and cafe owners who’ve been suffering and struggling for years as Northern and the unions have been in regular disputes for years. The toll this has taken on many businesses goes unrecognised. Just as they were getting back on their feet Covid struck. Then, as they were slowly recovering from that we had the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent energy crises. Oh, and that’s without mentioning the impact Brexit has had, making goods ever more expensive. It’s been a perfect storm for rail-based businesses so I’m not in the least surprised to have seen how many had closed down when I was doing my recent round Britain trip for RAIL. Station cafes and shops the length and breadth of the network have gone forever, and my fear is that more will follow in the new year because there’s no sign of a light at the end of the tunnel. They’re the ‘collateral damage’ from these strikes.
Another casualty of these strikes is my annual visit to the Railway Carol service in London, which is being held in Euston on Thursday. There’s no way I can get there in time, and even getting back would be risky. Instead, I’ll be spending another day at home, planning another adventure that’s been deferred by Covid.
On Saturday I had confirmation of my flight to Singapore in January. I’ll be spending two months away from the Septic Isle, exploring old haunts in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia – and also taking in some new sights too (hopefully). So, the enforced ‘downtime’ I have this week will allow me to start planning the trip. I’d originally hoped to have left the UK before Christmas, but the cost of flights was ridiculous. This many have been a blessing in disguise as the Christmas period is looking like a lousy time to travel due to the rail dispute and disruption at airports due to the Border Force taking strike action. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the date I’ve chosen to fly out (January 10th) is in that ‘sweet spot’ between strikes. Time will tell.
So, don’t expect much in the way of new rail pictures from me this week, which is very frustrating as I have a market for railway snow scenes but no way of capturing them! Instead, here’s an archive shot taken in the Calder Valley several years ago.
On the 21st January 2013 ‘Pacer’ 144009 approaches Sowerby Bridge from the East with a service for Manchester Victoria.
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It’s not often that I have the opportunity to fillet so much dishonest and fact-free nonsense about HS2 in the media nowadays, but I’ve been given the rare threat thanks to two people who’ve been writing trash about HS2 for years. Yesterday it was Andrew ‘transcription error’ Gilligan, one of the Tories client journalists who for many years was embedded in the heart of the Tory party as one of Boris Johnson’s coterie.
Today it’s the turn of the dyspeptic Simon Jenkins, whose penned his latest fact-free polemic in the Guardian, which you can find here. It’s up to his usual standard, loads of assertions with no facts to back it up and made-up numbers for the ‘true’ cost of HS2. I’ve examined Jenkins troubled relationship with facts before in this blog.
However, Jenkin’s goes one further than Gilligan and claims that ALL of HS2 should be cancelled immediately – even Phase 1 where construction is well advanced. To support his claim, Jenkins says this;
“A New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, famously halted a rail tunnel under the Hudson river by simply ordering the contractors to fill in the hole”.
There just one teeny problem with this claim. It’s complete and utter bollocks. Jenkins has made it up, and the reality shows Jenkins example of the ARC demonstrates that his idea is short-sighted and stupid in the extreme.
Here’s the reality. Chris Christie does exist. He was the Republican Governer of New Jersey between 2010 and 2018 when he lost to his Democrat challenger. He’d put his hat in the ring for his party’s Presidential nomination, he got nowhere, but Donald Trump did, Christie endorsed him and joined his team, and the rest, as they say, is history.
But what about this tunnel? That didn’t exist. There *were* plans to build one (there still are). Known as ‘Access to the Regions Core’ (ARC) the plan was to build two new tunnels from New Jersey to Manhattan and a new railway station next to Penn Station which was at capacity. The original cost of the project was estimated at $8.7bn. Preparations for building the tunnels began in 2009 with a completion date of 2018, but in 2010 Christie effectively cancelled the project by withdrawing his part of the funding, citing ‘concerns’ about cost overruns. By the time the project was cancelled in October 2010 all that was built was the Palisades ‘tunnel’, an underpass under Tonnelle Ave in North Bergen. Contracts *had* been let for tunnelling, Skanska had won the design and build contract for the full Palisades Tunnel on May 5, 2010, just 5 months earlier but tunnelling proper hadn’t even begun.
That wasn’t the end of the story. The decision was controversial and Christie became embroiled in a series of legal actions over where the money went – especially Federal funding towards the project. The federal government demanded repayment of funding received by New Jersey Transit for the project. After litigation, an agreement was reached where part of the funds were returned while other monies were used on transit-related projects.
That wasn’t the end of the story. Christie’s administration was later investigated and fined $400,00 for diverting funds from the project to subsidise various roads projects. Plus, some of New Jersey’s funds earmarked for ARC were eventually diverted to the state transportation trust, normally funded by a gasoline tax, one of the lowest in the United States. This was believed by many to be a cynical attempt to subsidise motoring by avoiding raising gas tax,
In March 2012, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a federal agency, published a report entitled Commuter Rail Potential Impacts and Cost Estimates for the Cancelled Hudson River Tunnel Project,which concluded that Christie’s basis for cancellation was a misrepresentation and that he misstated the estimated costs, cost over-runs, and New Jersey’s obligation to pay them (see link)
So, was anything ‘filled in’ as Jenkins claims? No, because the project never really died because it was still needed. This need became ever more evident after 2012’s Hurricane Sandy caused damage to the existing 100 year old rail tunnels which led to flooding of the New York subway. It’s estimated $5bn damage was caused to the rail systems. Some of the completed design and engineering work has been used by Amtrak to develop the Gateway Programme, which will build yes – you’ve guessed it – new tunnels under the Hudson! The Gateway Project was unveiled on February 7, 2011, just 4 months after Christie cancelled ARC.
So, the project Jenkins cites isn’t dead at all. Nothing was filled in and the delays and political shenanigans have cost taxpayers dearly! The original ARC project was budgeted at $10 billion and was due to open in 2018-20. The Gateway programme’s 2022 projected cost of the tunnels and related projects is $16.1 billion.
What Jenkins completely fails to mention is cancelling a project where no main construction works and no Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) were running is a very different kettle of fish to HS2, where the Chiltern tunnels are already over 8 miles long, the Long Itchington Tunnel has one of the 1-mile-long tunnels completed and at West Rusilip there are two more TBMs already boring East into London. Oh, and that’s without the 3.5km long Colne Valley viaduct which is already well underway! Add in all the other civil engineering work along the phase 1 route and we’re talking of 10s of billions already spent or committed. To claim this can just be cancelled or ‘filled in’ is nothing more than idiocy. But then when did Jenkins ever deal in reality when it comes to HS2? The most amusing thing about Jenkins using the Hudson tunnels as an example of how you could scrap HS2 (apart from the fact it was bollocks) is it’s exactly the opposite. It’s a classic example of why you shouldn’t cancel these vital projects and how doing so comes back to bite you on the arse!
Unlike Jenkins US tunnel which was never started much less ‘filled in’. here’s one of the HS2 Chiltern tunnels under construction. This is now over 4 miles long, as is its next door neighbour. The Long Itchington tunnel is half-complete and the West Ruislip tunnels already have two TBMs running. That’s over 9 miles of tunnels bored already…
January 1st 2023 update.
I was sent this link yesterday which puts the nail in the coffin of Jenkins nonsense. The new rail tunnel under the Hudson is on its way…
I’ve a small favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, 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 me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
Paul Bigland 