In the latest twist of the saga of a South Yorkshire station, it seems that HS2 are now looking for a new parkway site.
According to reports, more information here , HS2 Ltd gave a shortlist of potential parkway stations sites to Doncaster Council at a meeting this week. These sites might act as parkway stations with up to 1,700 parking spaces.
Proposed sites
- Bramley in Doncaster, South Yorkshire
- Clayton in Doncaster
- Fitzwilliam in Wakefield, West Yorkshire
- Hemsworth in Wakefield
- Hickleton in Doncaster
- Hooton Roberts in Rotherham, South Yorkshire
- Mexborough in Doncaster
- Wales in Rotherham
Paul Griffiths, Phase 2 Development Director for HS2 told the BBC that the Secretary of State asked HS2 Ltd to look into other parkway station sites to “spread the benefits”. This is contrast to other parts of the route, where the government viewed extra stations as reducing the benefits.
What’s not clear to us is whether this would be as well as or instead of the spur into central Sheffield.
Meanwhile, in the House of Lords report stage of HS2 yesterday, a number of peers expressed concerns at the increasing cost of HS2. In particular Lord Bradshaw pointed out that if the costs of Phase 1 were not managed carefully then there wouldn’t be any money for building Phase 2.
Pointless project HS2. No common or railway sense for HS2 when so much backlog exists in UK existing infrastructure needs addressing.
1700 parking spaces? Each 200m train will have 550 seats (double if 400m train) – That’s only a hour’s supply if HS2 believe trains will be relatively full & if only a third of each train gets on / off (the rest get off at Leeds or Toton – the only other captive stations on the Leeds leg)
Doesn’t seem enough? How many parking spaces are planned at Leeds & Toton?
Come on MPs admit you are not engineers, route planners and as Lord Bradshaw a railway specialist says you have not done sufficient pre-work. The railway is going the wrong way. Does the process have an auto-destruct facility. For the good of the people lets hope it does please.
What Bradshaw said was that developing Euston, as currently proposed, would take all of the funding set aside in the current funding envelope for Phase 2. So that gives 3 choices:
proceed with Phase 1 Euston to Birmingham and abandon Phase 2; proceed with Phase 2 but with Phase 1 stopping at Old Oak Common; vastly increase the current funding envelope.
Needless to say, as ‘post-truth’ or ‘alt-fact’ increasingly infects our Government, Lord Ahmad replied on behalf of the Government that we should all relax as HS2 costs are thoroughly reviewed by the various Treasury / Public Accounts / Audit Committees, who would say if there was a problem. Ummmm – they did. Many times. Why do I keep on wanting to sing that ditty – ‘liar, liar, your pants are on fire’?