It will come of no surprise to regular readers of this website to know that a new report on the ground conditions for the revised HS2 route through Cheshire has concluded the new route carries an “increased risk of subsidence” because more of it would go over “higher-risk” surfaces.
There has been long-held criticism of the route through Cheshire, ever since George Osborne was dubbed the ‘Six-Hundred Million Dog-Leg Man”, for ordering a kink in the route which took it around the richer parts of his constituency, such as Knutsford and Alderley Edge. However, this route took HS2 through the geologically unstable Cheshire Brine fields, which engineers had known they had to avoid back in the 1960s when they built the M6.
Earlier this year, HS2 Ltd moved the route, saying it solved these problems, even though beforehand they had never actually admitted to them, but a report from geological engineers TerraConsult claims it has actually made things worse.
The report warns of “the potential for the rapid development of significant movement” in this area under the weight and vibration of trains, “with a consequent risk rating as high” and with reference to new embankments that “A higher embankment increases the applied loads . . . If the ground below is not strong enough, there will be a slope failure.”, with the consultants claiming a claim by HS2 that the route has been changed to “minimise the risk of subsidence” at an additional cost of £750m is “highly disingenuous”.
Usual lame answers from Grayling on Marr programme
Just when will someone ask-
what services will cease on current lines?
If it’s about capacity why so few stops?
What evidence is there for 300,000 passengers claim?
For anyone who wishes to make a point have a look at Google maps at ” B77 5NQ “.Done with pallets etc.
I had a look at the finnacial accounts for HS2 .>talk about gravy train:
I think that Hs2 should be stopped!
HS2 simply disregards all the evidence which undermines its raison d’être and ploughs on in its avowed aim to build a railway few want and even fewer will be able to afford to use. There is only one sensible way forward and that is to scrap it before any more money, that’s our money, is squandered on this object lesson in government profligacy.