What to do Tomorrow

What to Do Tomorrow

Tomorrow we should finally have some really important questions answered by the Government

1)      The date of the start of the National Public Consultation

2)      How long the consultation will last

3)      What the remit will be i.e.; what questions we will be asked to respond to

4)      How the consultation will be operated across the country

5)      What the “new” business case will be

Dangers to look out for!

1)      The Government will most likely highlight the roadshows along the line of the proposed route – these are not the Priority for our campaign. The fact that this is a NATIONAL CONSULTATION is and we will be concentrating our efforts on speaking to the Nation, not those directly affected.

2)      We must not obstruct the consultation process even it does prove to be deeply flawed. Legal challenge of any failings will be far more effective but unfortunately we can not start that until after the consultation has finished. If you do manage to get access to the Launch please gain as much information as you can to share with those of us who have been barred!  Tweet it if you have a mobile Twitter account.

3)      Concentrating on local impact or talking about this route will not win the debate. This is a national issue and the nation need to be shown how it affects each and every one of us. HS2 is wrong anywhere on Business, Environmental, Social and Strategic grounds.

4)      Emotions are running very high amongst those directly affected and there is huge anger about the government’s callous treatment of those directly affected. Journalists are being told more than the people set to lose their homes. We must do everything we can to ensure our protests are entirely peaceful.

5)      Do not “bite” the media – we need them to work with us and even if you feel they are not being objective persuasion is much more effective than critiscm. The media are our friends and we must treat them as such.

What’s happening tomorrow?

1)      Protest events will be organised and will need your support. Birmingham tomorrow will see a white elephant parading the streets and some may wish to see that. The Beacons tomorrow night will be fantastic sign of unity along the line and act as a warning to the rest of the country that the HS2 consultation has started.

2)      If you are staying at home tomorrow you should be able to read the documents which will be issued by the Government and study those. STOP HS2’s chairman will be doing that in order to be able to issue a statement as soon as possible during the day

3)      Tweet and Blog about what you are finding out.

4)      Keep an eye television and an ear on the radio and participate online or by phone if you can.

5)      If you need help call us!

6)      Stay focused – we will be made angry by events I am sure but they want us to be. We can beat this we need to KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON!

6 comments to “What to do Tomorrow”
  1. Lizzy Williams, chairman Stop HS2 group

    The whole point with HS2 is it has not looked at any alternatives that are more sustainable and provide more value for money.

    Every penny counts for families struggling through the austerity era and this is not economically justified. Do people really want to spend £1,000 of their own money on this? The costs outweigh any benefits.

    The government should be investing in existing networks and local transport.

    High-speed rail uses more energy and is not a low carbon solution either. It will not shift people from air travel.

    We want to highlight to the country what is happening, we want people to look at the details and make informed decisions because it will affect us all.

    Lizzie – I think you need to do some more research into where High Speed Rail already exists, in particular between Paris and Brussels…….which I believe now only has 1 flight a day. To state that it will not shift people from air travel is simply untrue, and I have to admit typical of an anti…

    • in fact the benefits of hs2 OUTWEIGH the costs on a revised 2 for 1 basis. so every £1 of taxpayers money will create £2 for the economy which will help provide the jobs regettably being lost at the moment.

      if you go by the premiss that because other major projects have cost a lot more then anticipated and so therefore hs2 will even though it has the 40% treasury bias (allowance for cost overruns) built in then I guess you are saying we shouldnt ever have any large projects creating jobs and economic activity in case they overrun. It happens in the private sector too you know ! and the alternatives to hs2 have been found to be less cost effective and by the cost overrun scenario you paint then they could be well beyond estimates too like the west coast was.

      tell all the people who will be employed or have been employed by these major projects that they shouldnt have been built. tell all the business who are connecting better and making more business through rail travel through the channel tunnel (and remember all the flights that they have replaced) or all the activity that will be created by the olympics.

      it is a very spurious argument to say that if the taxpayer has contributed billions or bailed out (as you put it) large projects that this automatically means that they have no benefit. it is called acting in the national interest.

      i very much regret the current cutbacks and by no means do i support this government’s policy of seemingly going after the poor and disadvantaged. but then i didnt vote tory unlike many of the hs2 critics did judging by who you elected in your areas.and remember that after the election a poll was done in which 1/3 agreed with the cuts and 1/3 said they didnt go far enough ! However i do agree with their transport policy and the policy to support renewables. maybe that is the liberal influence, if they really have any that is !

      so until the next election anyway we have this government and hopefully they can be persuaded to abandon some of the more extreme policies like the woodland selloff. but they are keen to reduce the debt and will likely continue so to try to get them to abandon projects like hs2 seems short sighted. They would then likely say okay we wont do hs2 but wouldnt spend the money on reducing the cutbacks so we would have less jobs and nothing in the pipeline to create any more.

      and they have announced today that the great western electrification and associated new trains will go ahead so that will create jobs in the shorter term than hs2 and gives lie to the theory that hs2 will suck all the transport funding dry ! so i am afraid from my perspective the criticism of hs2 is the thing that doesnt add up not hs2 itself. for example, the extremely dubious notion that few people will use in when the existing networks are overcrowded and it will link most of the major areas of population and will significantly reduce overcrowding on the existing network which is the reason it is being buit.

      and i know you dont like comparisons with other countries (unless it is romania of course) but the chinese are currently trialling trains FASTER than the maximum design speed of HS2 !!! Today. Now.

  2. What do the Millennium Dome, 2012 Olympics, Channel Tunnel and HS2 have in common? Yes, that’s right, overpromised, over budget and bailed out by the taxpayer.
    What is the real reason the government is so keen on HS2? Maybe it’s the fat government construction contracts for Cameron’s Tory mates (don’t worry about cost over-runs lads the taxpayer will make it up!). Not to mention all the banker bonuses to sort out the finances. No complaints from the City then because they don’t pay taxes when their residence is in Monaco?
    Compare this to Cameron’s recent u-turn over the botched sell-off of our forests. It’s a great idea to get the dead hand of Whitehall out of our forests but why not just GIVE them to the Woodland Trust to manage? That’s right, no profits for Cameron’s Tory mates – the original plan was to sell off the forests to high rate taxpayers and more of Cameron’s Tory mates to chop down for plywood.
    This duplicity and connivance is not what I signed up for at the last election, did you? However this is the same lot who claim parliamentary expenses so need I say more? Out with the old charlatans and snake-oil salesmen and in with the new.
    There is no business case for HS2 otherwise a private company would be petitioning to build it with their banker mates in tow. HS2 will never make money just like HS1 – it will just be added to the national debt. Britain’s famous Victorian railroad boom turned into a giant bust just like “technology bubble” in 2000. Let speculators lose money NOT the British taxpayer. Currently there is no risk to Cameron because he will not be around when HS2 is proven to be an economic catastrophe that will harm Britain because it will suck up resources that could be invested in better infrastructure projects.
    The key to the campaign to stop HS2 is to keep Cameron as the focal point of the protests from middle England. He will only listen when it begins to damage his re-election chances.
    The UK is in a terrible mess due to Gordon Brown spending other people’s money on poorly thought out and unaffordable schemes. It’s ironic that Cameron’s big idea to get Britain back to work is by railroading us into a £17B+ white elephant on wheels.
    Still, we fight on…

  3. I would be really careful about placing too much hope in the ‘national’ aspect of the consultation coming out in the Stop campaigns favour. As a professional consumer researcher, I’ve spent a number of years researching leisure, business and commuter travellers, especially regarding their attitudes to rail travel.
    With rail passenger numbers running at a 50 year peak, and rail fares ‘fixed’ (relative to the variable and escalating petrol price), you will find a very large large number of rail-interested people keen to see the development of the national network. The reality is that the people who attend consultations are typically of polarised views, for and against.
    From my research experience since 2003 to date, I would strongly advise you to focus on the aspects of rail travel that the National Passenger Survey highlights (such as reliability, a flexible set of options for stopping patterns and through trains, and the local and regional connectivity benefits that alternatives to HS 2 would offer.

    I would be happy to advise further on this….

  4. I hope the public consultation should last no longer then 12weeks and 4weeks for time to review the consulation. A total of 16weeks this is a suitable time for people to get a good understanding of all documents. There also should not be allowed any legal challenge made that what a NATIONAL CONSULTATION is for. If we can prove the case for HS2 and i thick (well i know ) we can, the line should start construction by the year end. We will find out soon how long the consulation will be.

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