Cabinet minister Cheryl Gillan sells home near route of HS2 Sunday Telegraph – Jan 15 2012
Mrs Gillan had been one of the leading opponents to HS2 on the Tories’ benches and had previously threatened to resign if the project was given the green light.
HS2 not the best value rail option, says government report The Guardian Jan 14, 2012
The report concludes that a more modest counter-proposal, known as “51m” – referring to the amount critics of HS2 claim the overall cost of the high-speed project represents for each parliamentary constituency in the UK – would give a significantly..
MP urges minister to reject Scottish HS2 extension for West … This is Cornwall Jan 14, 2012
The Government should ditch plans to extend the high-speed rail link to Scotland and lavish the cash on improving journeys to the Westcountry, the transport minister has been told.Tory MP Gary…Cornwall
High-speed rail: Boris Johnson says that HS2 is ‘not right’ and ‘doesn’t work … Telegraph 14th Jan, 2012
…In another blow to HS2, the former head of the CBI and trade minister, Lord Digby Jones, told The Sunday Telegraph that it would not benefit the economy of his native West Midlands, as ministers have claimed, and the wrong route had been chosen….
RAILROADED: Hundreds of historic houses will be flattened or ruined by new Daily Mail – Jan 13, 2012
But this week, Transport Secretary Justine Greening confirmed that the HS2 high-speed train line will now go ahead – and once it is up and running, you won’t hear a bird around here for love nor money.
It’s not a class war for HS2 opponents from the Chilterns to Camden The Guardian – Jan 13, 2012
So anyway, here they are, the pros and the antis – pro-HS2 former transport secretary, Phillip Hammond, blamed nimbys, “people who just happen to live in Wendover or Aylesbury or Amersham” (for which, read “posh”).
Boris: “HS2 fight has only just begun” Uxbridge Gazette Jan 11, 2012
Mr Johnson was still critical of many aspects of the £32billion project… “This is not the end of campaigning against HS2, this is not even the end of the beginning, this is the beginning of the middle of the beginning.”
Channel 4 FactCheck: Why the numbers don’t add up on HS2 January 10, 2012
“On the day it announced the biggest infrastructure project for generations, the DfT released two different figures for how much it will cost, and is currently unable to offer an explanation why.”
News out today is that Luton airport is planning an expansion. Why couldn’t they have run HS2 up the East Coast instead? A triangle junction at Purfleet and they could be running HS trains from Luton into King’s Cross in no time. Heathrow can’t expand more, so other airports have to. And going on from Luton, the whole of the East Coast Mainline is running on diesel and is overcrowded. WCML has just seen a huge infrastructure injection, with high speed electrification and speed upgrades. Euston is the least overcrowded station, even if it is one of the busiest.
London already has three high speed international stations, one of which (Waterloo) lies empty and disused now. If they need a new London terminus, build one anew in a problem brownfield area, like Battersea or Kew Bridge, rather than disrupt an existing and functional station. It’s stupidity to duplicate an existing route.
There are a good number of hard working people in modest homes, in more urban areas affected that they seem to ignore.Those that do up old houses to preserve them often spend all their money on the upkeep and often’ rough it’ too.Better they do that than waste money on frivolities as the majority do.Because I do not live in a large house does not mean I do not appreciate the pleasure I get from seeing them.
Visitors from abroad come to see them,often in the summer the countryside is where those from the towns can relax,take it away and where will they go.The financial situation will mean less can go abroard.
What I have seen is worse then class war, people in the cities, whether the be rich or poor, seem to have a resentment towards people in more rural areas.
Nimby and Luddite is just name calling and bulling, besides, we could just as easily call HSR supporters Luddites for not accepting Maglev