Nuneaton News: MP welcomes Stop HS2 campaigners to Parliament
THE MP for North Warwickshire and Bedworth has welcomed Stop HS2 campaigners to Parliament.
MP Dan Byles met with anti-HS2 campaigners at the Houses of Parliament as part of the HS2 lobby day.
Leicester Mercury: The buildings set to be flattened by HS2
A report has outlined the properties which would have to be demolished to make way for the proposed High Speed 2 railway line….
It said the Plastic Omnium factory, on Measham’s Westminster Industrial estate, would also have to be flattened if the proposed route is not amended.
That would lead to the loss of 425 jobs in the area and a further 360 elsewhere.
Finaicial Times The Olympic optimism bias has left the taxpayer out of pocket (subscription or http://www.johnkay.com/2013/11/27/the-olympic-optimism-bias-has-left-the-taxpayer-out-of-pocket )
The games’ success fosters the mistaken belief that they were an economic success
Keep The Fat Cats’ Paws Off HS2
Transport unions launch campaign to keep new rail link in public hands
The new HS2 superfast rail line must be publicly owned so it does not become a “rich man’s toy,” transport union TSSA said yesterday.
Daily Mail: Could Chinese cash rescue £50bn HS2?
Britain’s biggest rail project since the Victorian age could be partly funded by China.
After talks in Beijing yesterday with David Cameron, Premier Li Keqiang said he wanted a slice of the £50billion High Speed 2 scheme.
Insight: The future belongs to those who leave themselves choices of how to deal with it
…HS2 might achieve all it claims but then again it might not, and for £50 billion (or whatever) you might want to leave yourself some choices if it all goes askew. There is no Plan B. If it doesn’t do what it sets out to, there is no second chance except to bodge around it. As Rory Sutherland pointed out in the Spectator recently, HS2 lacks optionality. Because it is designed to travel in straight lines and at high speed between a handful of cities, ignoring everywhere in between and those to the side and beyond its reach, it may be too rigid a system to cope with a future stranger than we can imagine….
Wildlife Trusts Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire: All I want for Christmas is…a 50,000 report on HS2!
Spare a thought for us this festive season as we work round the clock to examine the Government’s huge report on the environmental impact of the proposed north-south high speed line – HS2.
Bucks Free Press: Town council raise concerns about level of HS2 traffic
PRINCES Risborough Town Council has formalised its position against HS2, coming out against the high speed rail plan.
Thame Today: True impact of HS2 revealed
The horrific impact of HS2’s construction in Aylesbury Vale has become clear as the high speed rail bill is published.
Today’s Bucks Herald includes a four-page summary of the relevant sections from the 50,000-page document and outlines the disturbances to 300 sites on the Vale roads, public footpaths and common land.
Stoke Sentinel: Newcastle Borough Council opposes HS2 line through Staffordshire
POLITICAL groups have united in opposing controversial plans for a high speed railway through Staffordshire.
Members of Newcastle Borough Council agreed to oppose the HS2 project, which is set to cut through Madeley, Whitmore Heath and Baldwins Gate.
A working group of councillors from all three main parties has spent several months examining the arguments for and against HS2.
The group’s preliminary report, which was supported by the full council, calls on the authority to form a ‘joint policy of opposition’ with Staffordshire County Council.
NME: Why Camden’s Shitty-Arsed Rock ‘N’ Roll Must Be Saved From High Speed Rail
Hello high-speed access to the midlands, goodbye sticky-floored rock thrills. With the grand old Astoria already lost to the blasted planners of transport infrastructure, are we now to lose half of Camden to HS2 as well? Will Proud be a Pumpkin in eighteen months? Will there be replacement buses idling where the Roundhouse once stood? Will KOKO be lost to the loco?
Well, no. At present all we’re threatened with is a possible closure of Camden Market for extended periods while the track area is widened, not a whacking great out-of-control intercity ploughing through the rubble of our capital’s proud rock heritage, smashing through toilet venue after toilet venue, demolishing Barfly after Underworld after Dublin Castle, driven by a cackling Boris bellowing Ocean Colour Scene’s ‘The Day We Caught The Train’ to show just how little he knows or cares about great British rock.
Or are we? If the lengthy closure of Camden Market kills off rock tourism in the capital, and thus Camden itself as a cultural fulcrum, the Dalstonites will laugh all the way to Efes but the damage may well be significant. Sure, London’s stylistic hub long since shifted East, but Camden remains a hive of sweaty, shitty-arsed rock’n’roll, and the epicentre of a fine tradition that’s driven our nation’s musical development for decades and we should be wary of losing the grotty pub gig.
Telegraph: HS2 Bill is ‘the worst Christmas present ever’
HS2 protesters have just 57 days to object to a 50,000-page Bill. We meet the campaigners facing an uphill task
Get West London: HS2 marks ‘its’ territory 24 hours after Hybrid Bill
Barely 24 hours after the HS2 Hybrid Bill was published, along with its Environmental Impact Statement that confirmed where the greatest construction impact would be felt, signs have begun to appear warning local people of what to expect.
Liverpool Echo: New high-speed trains will be ‘too long’ to fit into Lime Street station
Britain’s high-speed trains will be too long to fit into Liverpool Lime Street Station. The 250mph trains – due to run on the country’s railway tracks under the High Speed 2 scheme – will be more than 1,300ft (400m) in length. But Lime Street Station’s platforms are only long enough for 850ft (260m) trains.
Huffington Post: HS2 Bill Does Not Protect Camden
To much fanfare, and a considerable amount of protest, the HS2 Hybrid Bill was published on Monday morning alongside an environmental report, which the public are allowed to scrutinise and respond to over the next eight weeks.
IEA: High Speed 2: Tarzanomics vs. Economics
One of the so-called ‘Big Beasts’ of UK politics and government, Lord Heseltine – formerly cast as ‘Tarzan’ by much of the media – has recently swung (again!) through the tree-tops of the politico-economic jungle to deliver his verdict upon the High Speed 2 proposal.
Barnsley Chronicle: ‘HS2 will not benefit Hoyland’ – residents vent anger on officials
The demand in passenger growth is tailing off.
The economic benefits for the Rail component of HS2 drops away.
The projections of wealth and jam tomorrow are therefore are all about development of land that was previously protected or in private ownership.
Clause 47 (and a few others) indicate that new ‘draconian powers’ of land grab have been introduced by the coalition with the expressed intention of ‘grab’ limitless in boundaries of time and space, HS2 is in essence a land grab sold to the Chinese unless a higher bidder comes forth.
For the Greenest Govt ever read the greediest.
The issue of compensation (Bercow and courts) remains as unfair as to be unlawful, now we know why. Yet the assets are being stripped and sold to sovereign as the process becomes manifest to the vicitms and public.
It seems the spoils are already being divided up (with the better informed politicians than in the UK. Chinese officiates appear better briefed that Westminster).
Chinese aspirations are relatively transparent and if a PM offers a country on a plate with all the trimmings it is a difficult dish to refuse. Camerons easy virtue can only be based on financial necessity or over-riding political belief. Whatever he did not have the decency to enter the matter into public debate before his seemimgly ‘private’ negotations with punters.
On the eve of his visit the press was full how many low status entrepreneurs were being introduced to the Chinese.
Cornish tea to China………………and huge undiscussed projects seemingly out of the blue.
Anyone with a notion of diplomacy and delegation knows the truth. The issue is ‘was parliament informed and in agreement. Ordinary as opposed to perverse politics would have to say ‘yes’ otherwise there would have been an outcry of protest. There was no protest or hint of one.
The action of Con/lib/labour and the manipulation/indolence of the HoPs is both informative and represents one of the best exemplars of modern day politics. In the period that every household is committed to thousands of pounds of HS2 subsidy and taxation the media was full of 3 year plans to transfer £50 payment from direct fuel to indirect income tax.
The media frenzy of this story obliterated the real issues of HS2 and the damage to the AONB financially far more damaging to the public.
The public are being distracted by the whipping up of media noise and not the issues at the heart of the arguments that seriously effect them. Despite the massive propaganda that has been deployed there is a semblance of common sense that is well reflected in public opinion, independent institutions and the media.
The only voices that appear in control of and perverting the democratic process and Parliamentary principals are MPs in parliament itself and vested, partial, environmentally damaging and running contrary to environmental, economic and commercial academia.
Sadly they have the majority of Parliament in their thrall.
HS2 is clearly not for the country it is very specific in terms of the cities that are for development/landgrab and the vested interests who benefit.It is interesting to see the ‘coalescence of ultra right and left wing interests in this process now aligned with totalitarian foreign state money. What is clear is that people (ordinary) and even fig leaf democracy are no longer on this agenda. What is clear is the rich get richer the power is more concentrated and democratic structures are no longer accountable to the electorate. The majority now relegated to a sub class are expendable pawns in the grand game of global financial rape. Like serfdom of old it relies on a class of loyal servants advancing the cause in this case it has become HoP Civil Service and the many ‘beneficiaries’ of the scheme.
So here is the nub of the problem. Is HS2 the exemplar of Parliamentary democratic failure ( with cynical public manipulation at the time of ‘adversity) coupled with the the use of a highjacked democratic process to defraud the public of their private and collective assets using propaganda and the notion of greater good (whilst obfuscating the true beneficiaries)?