Johnson is wrong to favour HS3 over HS2
ALONG with the late Professor Sir Peter Hall, we were the initial proposers of HS3 (published as a proposal for High Speed North some weeks before George Osborne’s Northern Powerhouse speech).
So we should like to comment on Boris Johnson’s suggestion that HS2 should be scrapped in favour of HS3.
This would be sheer folly. HS2 is a fully designed scheme, with planning consents, available funding, and government approval.
It is, to use a cliché, a ‘shovel ready project.’
Building HS2 will bring a whole range of benefits: faster, more productive and more comfortable journeys to the Midlands and the South, faster access from the Midlands and the South to Manchester and its airport, the ability for Manchester-based businesses to easily service London markets, and capacity released on existing lines for more freight and local services.
HS3 is still little more than a good idea. As yet there is no agreed route, no design work, no public consultation, no commitment, no approval and no money.
It would take years to put this package together, even if the will can be sustained.
Cancelling HS2 in favour of HS3 would most likely lead to no investment at all.
Boris Johnson is no fool. He knows this. That is why, as London Mayor, you did not hear him arguing for the cancellation of Crossrail (or Crossrail 2) to fund the London Overground or improvements to London’s Underground system.
David Thrower, Public Transport Consultant, Prof Ian Wray, University of Liverpool
Nationalising rail a bad idea
GRAHAM Stringer MP (Viewpoints,
October 2) demands the re-nationalisation of the railways.
Nationalisation has never worked yet. The great state-owned economies of Eastern Europe collapsed in chaos within the last 30 years.
The railways were invented out of thin air by private enterprise in the 19th Century.
No government has ever invented anything.
The privatised railways have been a victim of their own success. The complaints of overcrowding stem from the simple fact that far more people – well over twice as many – are travelling by rail today than during nationalisation.
R Marshall, Salford
A very poor role model
I WAS saddened today, as I walked through Bury Market, to hear a man aged about 30, boasting to his wife and three children, aged roughly ten, six and two, that he had ‘decked’ a man for staring at him.
What chance of growing into decent members of the community do these children have with a halfwit like that for a father?
I was left wishing we could have something similar to the driving test before people were able to have children.
Grahame Buxton, Hazel Grove
MPs don’t want Brexit
THE result was exciting, but the day after June 24, 2016, I thought, “I’ll believe that happens when I see it, and the opposition will be kicking and screaming against leaving”. And so it has proved to be. We are told that 73 per cent of MPs voted to remain, so they did not want to leave then, and perhaps they don’t really want to implement leaving now, more than two years later.
It is, therefore, no surprise that progress has been slow, with much argument.
The government is aware of this and has to consider what legislation it can pass through Parliament with this opposition from MPs.
The UK is not leaving Europe, it is leaving the European Project.
Trading will continue after April 2019.
If leaving was seen to be a smooth process, other countries may be encouraged to follow, so it must appear to be so very difficult.
The Prime Minister said the decision was up to the British people.
It is very disappointing that politicians of all parties have not co-operated to implement the result of the 2016 vote, with acceptance and enthusiasm.
Steven Bullough, Hazel Grove