What keeps HS2 on track?

Published: 10 March, 2011

• CONGRATULATIONS to Peter Jones for an excellent article (Forum, March 3) demolishing all of the arguments put forward on favour of HS2, the proposed new high speed rail line, by Philip Hammond, the transport minister.

But Mr Jones misses the one reason why the minister is insisting on going ahead: there are powerful people in the construction industry telling him what to do. They stand to make a great deal of money over a very long period into the future. They are already raking it in as consultancy fees. How much have Arup been paid already? How much is Mr Hammond paying the private consultants who will organise his absurd road shows (which he will call “asking people what they think”)?

No doubt the contributions to the Conservative Party are keeping HS2 on the rails as well. Mr Hammond will be insisting on going ahead with HS2 for one reason and one only: a lot of people stand to make a lot of money out of it.

TOM MUIRHEAD
Address supplied

Bin this plan

• THE current proposal for HS2 – duplicating Euston to Birmingham – is misconceived and should be binned. 

What’s actually on the table for consultation is only 100 miles to Birmingham and not to be opened for more than 15 years. The rest is propaganda!  

Regrettably, I find myself at odds with my party. In fact several Camden councillors currently find themselves at odds with their official party line. I choose openly to oppose and pursue a U-turn by the coalition, as happened with flogging off forests. 

The revised business case currently being presented in the touring exhibition is a fudge full of holes which simply doesn’t stack up. It would be primarily be a service for affluent business travellers at huge expense and operating subsidies from the poor taxpayers. The argument that it’ll boost the Birmingham economy has been challenged by experts and the region could be better addressed directly without burning pound notes on this macho bling project which is most certainly not green.  

With the third runway at Heathrow having been dropped, HS2 must surely be built around a hub serving Heathrow without the proposed convoluted interchange, Old Oak Common, which would also slow down all journeys from the west into Paddington? 

The cost outlined is obscene. The money could be far more effectively spent on improving the rail network’s national infrastructure. Or on helping local government provide vital local services. While this route remains on the table it will blight the planned path for the next decade.

Passing through my Cantelowes ward, it is proposed that there be an extra link line running from the Primrose Hill’s painted bridge via Camden Lock and Camden Road and on to St Pancras and Eurostar. Be aware that the two trains per hour proposed in each direction on a single track is acknowledged by Transport for London prospectively to oblige cuts to the frequency on our transformed Overground service. And HS2, we are told, would also reduce the number of Virgin trains to Birmingham.  

There’s a disgraceful silence from the three cabinet-member councillors for Regent’s Park ward, which is the one most badly affected, where 350 council homes would be demolished and the tranquil 

St James’ Gardens completely lost. Although 17 councils, including Tory ones, along the proposed HS2 route have already come out against the proposal, the Labour administration in Camden is fence-sitting. One is forced to wonder if this is Camden’s officers’ influence seeking to ignore residents’ heartfelt opposition, to support a hidden agenda of underwriting the regeneration of Euston.

CLLR PAUL BRAITHWAITE
Lib Dem, Cantelowes ward