The Government and the Department for Transport have recently issued a number of releases relevant to HS2.
Today, there’s the Government response, to November’s Transport Select Committee report, High Speed Rail.
We don’t think the Government have provided adequate answers to the major issues that the Transport Select Committee said needed to be addressed before continuing with the £33 billion proposal.
There were two on Friday about the West Coast Main Line intercity franchise:
- InterCity West Coast rail franchise – the new agreement “will allow the franchisee to vary the capacity provided on individual days of the week in order to cater for the variations in daily demand.”
- New West Coast rail franchise to deliver 28,000 more seats.
We said in November 2010 that it was not feasible to expect people to wait 15 years for a solution to overcrowding on current trains, and it looks like the Department for Transport have realised that too.
And on 16th January, Norman Baker, the LibDem Transport minister announced the Anywhere Working Initiative. He said:
“It’s simply not necessary for us to always trudge to and from meetings when modern technology allows you to circumnavigate the globe virtually from the comfort of your front room, local coffee shop or when you’re on the move.”
We’ve been in favour of this kind of iniative since we first reported it, and we’re pleased to see it being continued. However the rest of the DfT don’t seem to realise that schemes like this will reduce the need for HS2 as well.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16741144
Northolt is very near to where the HS2 will cross the M25 at Harefield. A new London Terminus?
The Pendelino has on-board internet to your seat. This is a fantastic service from Virgin, which utterly destroys the calculations about the business cost of a commute. The duplication of an existing route is just nuts. I agree with the need for high speed rail and transport infrastructure, but this should be to open up new, currently unserved areas which have much more capacity for rapid expansion than the packed confines of Manchester and Birmingham. If only the proposed scheme was coupled with legislature which sped up brownfield development, then they might be able to justify the claims about urban regeneration that they have made!
What a load of waffle in the Government’s response! The same general flannel they have made from day one. I responded to the email lI had from the DFT re the consulation response by thanking them for taking no notice of the public response to their flawed consultation and saying that the fight goes on.
Press release or otherwise, the 28,000 extra Pendolino seats are not news! The information has been out there for a very long time! See Railway Gazette International article ‘West Coast Pendolino contract signed’ dated 19 September 2008 – “UK: Leasing company Angel Trains announced on September 19 that it had signed contracts with Alstom for 106 extra Pendolino vehicles for West Coast services…”.