why all the hate for hs2?

Soldato
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It's the fact that it's only going to go to Birmingham.

No way are the final sections ever going to be built past that!
This has to be the most expensive Railtrack in history,it all stinks off what ever works for London then so be it.

Also is it not 2040 odd when it's due to be completed in its entirety? Other nations will have mag Lev trains and who knows what by then.
 
Caporegime
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The first phase of the HS2 high speed railway linking London to Birmingham has gone over its budget again.

The news comes less than two months after construction officially began.

Ministers have admitted an extra £800m is needed due to more asbestos being discovered and the complexities of bringing the railway into a new hub station at London Euston.

Earlier this year the government gave HS2 a revised budget of £98bn after previous costings became unrealistic.

The Department for Transport said it was "relentlessly focused on controlling costs" and still expects HS2 Ltd to complete the first stretch of the railway within its target cost of £40bn.
I bet a billion pounds it doesn't come within its £40bn budget (phase I). £800m extra this early, would it be really that surprising if the final costs comes in at around £150-200bn.

Original estimate was ~£33bn, then ~£57bn, then ~£85bn and now ~£100bn.
 
Caporegime
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Lol.

Even for a government project this is excessive.

Usually you can take any initial estimate and double or triple it. But this takes the biscuit. The whole pack!

What a joke.
What a waste of the environment.
What a waste of money

I'm sure they know the true cost to some extent but fudge the numbers to get it through.

Just like the aircraft carriers.
 
Soldato
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Is there no way a project this ridiculous can be scrapped?
I guess it's lining the pockets of some government mates, or companies they've got an interest in?

By the time it's finished, will anyone be working in offices? :/
 
Caporegime
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Is there no way a project this ridiculous can be scrapped?
I guess it's lining the pockets of some government mates, or companies they've got an interest in?

By the time it's finished, will anyone be working in offices? :/

I think that it's rather clear that the Tories (or more accurately, a revolutionary faction) want to make it so that cancelling it is a worse option than shoveling taxpayer's cash into their friend's pockets.
 
Soldato
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I bet a billion pounds it doesn't come within its £40bn budget (phase I). £800m extra this early, would it be really that surprising if the final cost comes in at around £150-200bn.

Original estimate was ~£33bn, then ~£57bn, then ~£85bn and now ~£100bn.
It's bat**** crazy in a way only the UK could manage. Parliament had votes at various stages up until a point when the forecast budget was £33bn, but ever since then it's been "Parliament voted for HS2, and so all anyone can do now is tinker around the edges." No acknowledgement that a £33bn HS2 is an entirely different beast to a £150bn HS2 - let alone, a £150bn HS2 in the wake of an economy wrecking CV19 pandemic, and a disastrous Brexit, and a lockdown-inspired Working-From-Home revolution.

What has surprised me is just how many HS2 supporters turn out to be financially invested in the project - either through links to the rail industry or through employment in its construction.
 
Soldato
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I bet a billion pounds it doesn't come within its £40bn budget (phase I). £800m extra this early, would it be really that surprising if the final costs comes in at around £150-200bn.

Original estimate was ~£33bn, then ~£57bn, then ~£85bn and now ~£100bn.

I was / am in favour of HS2 but it is looking pretty ridiculous at the moment.

Monorail, monorail, monorail.

Maglev, maglev, maglev or hyperloop, hyperloop, hyperloop :D

Is there no way a project this ridiculous can be scrapped?
I guess it's lining the pockets of some government mates, or companies they've got an interest in?

By the time it's finished, will anyone be working in offices? :/

As someone said they might finish the part to Birmingham and then scrap the rest. I didn't think it was solely about people commuting but also increasing capacity for freight too?
 
Caporegime
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I bet a billion pounds it doesn't come within its £40bn budget (phase I). £800m extra this early, would it be really that surprising if the final costs comes in at around £150-200bn.

Original estimate was ~£33bn, then ~£57bn, then ~£85bn and now ~£100bn.
I don't think you're being ambitious enough.

How about £500 billion?
 
Soldato
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I was / am in favour of HS2 but it is looking pretty ridiculous at the moment.

That cost is just going to go up and up, for what will be a white elephant that will bring a very small benefit to a very small number of people. It's just a scheme for moving public tax money into the pockets of companies and their shareholders. At a time when the chancellor is spending money from the magic money tree like its water during the covid/Brexit economic crisis and talking about clawing it back, they could easily save themselves hundreds of billions of pounds by cancelling this pointless project.
 
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