No it isn't. I'm yet to see any reasonable plan put forward that would increase capacity to the extent needed which doesn't involve building a new line. Capacity is the whole point of HS2, and always has been.
I thought it was to get Toff's to London and their morning coffee 5 minutes earlier so they don't have to queue as long at Starbuck's or Costa.
I'd have more sympathy for those that make this argument if it went hand in hand with the call for an immediate and absolute halt to any and all road improvements, from new roads to widening to resurfacing. I think even I could be convinced to drop my support for HS2 in return for that!
Joking aside. They could have ran a section from Sheffield to York using the existing Dearne Valley line. The route at the minute only has six trains per day. That wouldn't have meant any disruption.
I'm not surprised if the Leeds branch is cancelled at all. I fully expect a claw back from the more traditional tory base to push back against dePfeffels populism and extravagant wastefulness and its things like this that will be shelved. I'm not sure its ever been the best use of £100bn+ though, even less so post covid. It still leaves the issue of how do we encourage more people to use public transport, especially outside of London. If there is no infrastructure, its hardly surprising that the car is king in so many towns, cities and regions.
It never could stick to a budget because in truth there never was a properly costed budget....more of a guesswork figure that Hs2 hoped the politicians would support...when it's demonstrated as wrong they just revise it upwards...again and again and again. It only became capacity when the speed aspect started to become less popular...Hs2 have continually overestimated future demand and refused to produce figures that accurately back their case. An interesting report from some serious transport people below is interesting. https://www.its.leeds.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/HS2_-_the_case_for_a_review.pdf
Whether you ‘agree’ with HS2 or not, this is a shocking decision for the north and proves the whole ‘levelling up’ agenda is nothing more than lip service. This wasn’t helped by the whole fiasco within the Sheffield City Region and the arguments about the location of a station in Sheffield!
There was talk of using the Old Sheffield Victoria station access and Meadowhall as a parkway station.
There’s a reason this line isn’t used much. It’s quicker for Cross Country services to serve Doncaster and use the much faster line since the Selby deviation was built. Remember, rail is about making money and serving as many areas as possible. It’s also one of the many reasons the North Midland line was closed - funnily enough, had they kept that open and made some upgrades, a 40 minute Leeds - Sheff journey would’ve been possible. Ahh well - hindsight and all that.
I’m more than aware of the options. Sheffield City Council demanded a city centre station to the detriment of everywhere else in South Yorkshire and essentially (if the Eastern leg was ever built) ended up with a slower service, less trains, and fewer direct services.
Hs2 Officials ran a 'Roadshow' near me and one of the benefits for the area was quoted as....''because it will be so quick to get to London and back from here, the area will have a much needed influx of commuter professionals, raising the prices of your houses'' Forgive me for being a stupid northern Oik, but is an influx of people from down south snapping up homes in the area really beneficial to my kids?
That’s because the original ‘Meadowhall’ route was scrapped after Sheffield City Council demanded a city centre station. Once the route was changed it never came through Ardsley, and that’s why you’ve had no further correspondence.
I can't see the point at having to commute out to "Parkway" stations either though. Surely they could have come to some sort of suitable agreement. It's only natural that a big city should take precedent.
Sheffield wanted Victoria as it would mean Hs2 would cover the cost of millions that needed to be spent on Sheffield's 'Grey to Green' plan. The Chinese money moguls that Sheffield were courting wanted the town centre station. Julie Dore wrote to the Chair of Hs2 demanding the removal of Meadowhall on South Yorkshire PTE headed notepaper...as though it was the combined Councils of South Yorks joint opinion. She was caught out and a huge row went on within the Labour Party....somewhere I still have a copy of the letter.
That ought to be bleeding obvious. How come public transport use has plummeted everywhere bar London ever since deregulation? Because London didn’t get deregulated. Why? Because public transport in the capital is too important to leave to the market. Just like Beeching, Thatchers deregulation of transport, followed by the privatisation of the railways, was always about putting more of us in cars - by design. The Tories had an interest in ensuring we spent our money on capitalist dreams (houses and cars) tying us into working to keep their mates richer.
If it’s cancelled, great! Extra capacity? Not really needed apart from one or two trains on weekday mornings and ditto around 6pm in the evening. The evening trains usually clogged up with people getting off at Peterborough, which could be easily solved by just not stopping there for me (I live in leeds), the journey time to london would be longer, because instead of travelling to Wakey (which takes me about 15m), I’d have to travel into Leeds (which can easily take 45). To save, erm….20 minutes. You do the maths. Oh and about 25% of the journey time into London is the final 5-10% of the line in outer London The lines to Birmingham are good enough. The one to Manchester……isn’t if you want to “level up the north”, do the HS2 Manc leg and improve the northern corridor links from Liverpool to Manchester to Bradford, Leeds, then Donny, with a freight line from Leeds to Hull) as no one rarely goes to Hull on purpose anyways. in the main though, the desire to commute to London has just been proven (thanks to COVID) to no longer be required. it won’t “save” any money though, as the legs to Birmingham and Manchester will overspend anyway.
