Last week, the Birmingham post published results of their survey into HS2, including a partial breakdown of the results.
The overwhelming majority – two thirds – of people who replied were opposed to the line. Even in Birmingham, 30% of people are opposed to the line.
What was equally interesting was that only 30% of the respondents though that HS2 would benefit Birmingham’s economy.
The article states “Just under 34 per cent thought they would use high speed rail, either in a professional or personal capacity. However, that figure rose to almost 95 per cent among people who were supporting HS2.”
This shows that the support for HS2 comes almost entirely from people who think they would benefit directly from it.
It would be fascinating to see how many of the “almost half of those who supported the HS2 project live within five miles of the proposed track” also live in Birmingham.
I’d also like to see the breakdown of how many, for instance, of the people earning under £20,000 would use HS2 personally, or if all those earning over £70,000 would use it professionally.
All in all, it’s an interesting survey.
If you look at the PDF with the survey results and the map on the Birmingham Post article, (both linked to in this article) you’ll get a sense of the proximity of the respondents.
http://menmedia.co.uk/middletonguardian/news/s/173/173461_booth_hall_rip.html
Thought I would throw this in – nothing to do with HS2, but it gives you an idea of what happens when the protesters dont get there way.
In a nutshell, Manchesters Booth Hall and Royal Pendlebury Hospitals ( both childrens ) were closed and replaced by a brand new state of the art facility next door to the Uni in the centre of manchester last year. There were plenty of surveys at the time of when all this was planned – loads of doom and gloom merchants etc….
The facilty is now fully open and functional ……..not a single complaint can now be heard as its delivering world class healthcare for youngsters.
Yes, cancel HS2 and there’ll be more money for new hospitals.
@Joanne
When might these imaginary extra public services (such as hospitals) emerge following the cancellation of HS2, I am tempted to ask?
Not any time soon, that’s for sure because as every anti-HS2 activist well knows (but keeps quiet about) more than 95% of the projected HS2 budget is for ten years hence, NOT NOW!
In fact if we’re going to suddenly, in these austere times, produce a financial bonanza to inject money into ailing public services, by cancelling major transport infrastructure projects, the obvious candidates are CrossRail (budgeted at £16bn?) and ThamesLink (cost £Xbn?)
Now this strategy would free up funding immediately but somehow I don’t think the strategy would go down too well in the London/SE nexus of power & influence, where ironically enough, the bulk of anti-HS2 sentiment originates
Kind of funny that, isn’t it?
I have looked at the location of the survey respondents Penny, and guess what; it bears out exactly the point I continually make about flaws within HS2 surveys
Southam (population 6,509 at the last census) generates 73 (71 [97%] of them against HS2) responses but Birmingham (comparable inner city population over 1 million) has 157 contributions……errrrr something doesn’t quite equate there?
Oh, now I understand – in fact the survey was flooded by negative responses from people living in close proximity to the proposed HS2 route (in places like Southam) who had purposely been directed to the existence of the survey (by campaign groups like StopHS2) in order to give an entirely skewed outcome to the eventual outcome
So when the headline comes out it reads “majority against HS2” when the facts of the a matter are that a huge majority amongst a relatively passive and non-motivated West Midlands population are in favour of the benefits flowing from the project.
Conclusion; I think we can safely dismiss the validity of this particular survey
Or you could look at it another way, Peter: only 157 people from Birmingham could be bothered to vote, in spite of the enormous benefits to the city that have been promised by George Osborne, Philip Hammond et al.
Or you could look at it another way Rose…..only 1% of Southam actually voted at all, the other 99% realise that they are going to be getting compensation for something that they wont actually notice anyway!!
99% of Southam getting compensation? Yeah, sure! How on earth did you dream up that one? I expect an equally er .. imaginative reason for the apparent lack of interest from Birmingham.
’d also like to see the breakdown of how many, for instance, of the people earning under £20,000 would use HS2 personally, or if all those earning over £70,000 would use it professionally.
Yeah yeah, so you can persist with this “fat cats” stuff. Up the workers eh?
What I’d like to see is a breakdown of how many Stop HS2 supporters use the M40 (which rips through an AONB unless I’m very much mistaken) to get to work in London each day and how much they earn by doing so, and how many of them were part of the “Stop the M40” campaign, which ran for, oooh, hardly any time at all IIRC.
I think the whole thing is ridiculous, I can not believe that there are that many people travelling to and from London to Birmingham by car who will abandon said motor car for a fast train that will only take you from city centre to city centre. So for those few that do thousands of acres of pristine countryside for the rest will be lost forever. I also think that these will not be “Additional” services but instead of in many cases thus leaving some points in the existing route poorly or not serviced at all,
If you look at the figures, most of those who responded were:
a) outside Birmingham (73% of all respondents); and
b) close to the line of route (62% of all respondents within 5 miles, and many more from within 10 miles).
70% of those responding against HS2 were within 5 miles of the route, whereas of those in favour of HS2, 46% were within 5 miles. 72% of those from Birmingham responding were in favour of HS2. It appears those responding from ‘other areas’ may tend to be close to the line of route – see b) above).
It is no surprise therefore that a majority of those responding to this survey are against HS2…but I do not think this can be interpreted as representative of what everyone across the West Midlands or Britain thinks. The Birmingham Post is not a national newspaper, so I think only those a) interested in Birmingham and/or b) directly campaigning on HS2 would have known about it…
This tells us nothing we do not already know, and we still need to know what everyone thinks about HS2, as this is a national consultation, not just those close to the proposed line of route. I think we need to see the results of DfT’s consultation to get a proper national view.