Plans for expensive scheme hard to take
OH, how I wish I had a quid for every pro-hs2 expert I’ve communicated with over the last six years who hasn’t actually bothered to study HS2’S own economic business plan. It’s a laborious read, put aside a weekend if you plan on doing so.
It’s deliberately complicated, misleading and full of assumptions. HS2’S assumptions began in 2009. One such catastrophic example back then was that the project would attract private capital. It didn’t, of course. To this day, HS2 still has no revenue projection than can be substantiated, and nobody still knows what it will cost.
HS2 is entirely paid for by the British taxpayer, through Government borrowing (silly, but always tempting while interest rates are virtually zero).
The peculiar thing about HS2 as a project, and with apologies to Neil Stafford (“HS2 critics are still ignoring the facts”, Opinion January 27), some letter writers have had the experience of meeting directly with HS2 decision makers to discuss their own understanding of the project.
Enquiring of HS2 directors, Cabinet ministers and business leaders (all face to face) about the nitty gritty detail is a challenge when they haven’t read the economic plan themselves.
HS2 was never going to meet the transport infrastructure requirements of the UK. Quite the reverse in effect, since it swallows up enormous resources, leaving waste and destruction in its wake.
The point Mr Stafford makes about the number of people currently employed on HS2, including apprenticeships, reveals the sadness of the saga. Yes, no doubt all good and decent, exceptionally well-rewarded employees, but HS2 (the most expensive project ever proposed by any British Government in peacetime) wasn’t created to satisfy itself was it? It just evolved that way.
But HS2 shouldn’t be about “opinions” (personally, I am not instinctively opposed to high speed rail). HS2 should be about facts and the truthful communication of those facts.
But there’s nothing much on the telly at the moment, so how about a weekend of reading HS2’S business plan? It can, so to speak, change one’s understanding of it, and best of all, sort out a few unhelpful opinions on the matter.
David Briggs Kingston on Soar